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In reply to the discussion: I am a Fed that is going to retire and so will 1000's like me [View all]jeffreyi
(2,200 posts)and encountered a huge resource project, cutting Utah junipers out of aspen stands and sagebrush steppe, and piling the slash. These juniper trees are 80-100 years old; they have established and expanded because of fire exclusion, grazing, and changing climate which has been going on for decades. There are millions of acres of public land in this condition in the Intermountain West. The effects are basically a loss of diversity and ecological function and wildlife habitat, including sage grouse. So it's very interesting to me when a project like this happens; the crews are cutting junipers out of the scarce aspen stands as well as the uplands in several drainages. The vegetation and soils and wildlife response will be interesting to follow. I learned that this project is 3300 acres. The work is all hand work, guys with chain saws. I have done this on my little personal postage stamp acreage, and the work is brutally hard. At least my 72-year old body thinks so. Anyway, my friends and I finally found the work crew, and visited with them. They were all Latinos from Mexico and Honduras. They are working under a federal contract, so by law they are making decent wages. These guys reminded me of Sherpas on Everest, they are that strong. There is no way in hell any volunteer people in this country that I am aware of could or would do that work. I think for the crew members to work under a federal contract they have to have green cards. But I wonder if they are in the deportation cross hairs anyway. I bet a bunch of them don't stick around to find out come Jan 6. There is so much work to do on our rangelands and forests just to get the fuels down to a non-catastrophic level, much of it hand work, and 90% of the American population can't or won't do the work. I personally think that if people from other countries want to come here and work for a decent period of time on our public lands, they should have a pathway to citizenship. Assuming they want it. They very well might not these days.
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