Four Winds Council Letter on the Strategic Fuelbreaks Project

Editor's note: I've added three italicized passages into the Four Winds letter below to indicate how general points that the Four Winds Council makes might be related specifically to the Palo Colorado area.

You can still email or fax your own comment letter to the Forest Service as long as it's submitted by midnight February 12/13.

Email: comments-pacificsouthwest-los-padres-monterey@fs.fed.us

Fax: 831-385-0628

______________________

Re: Strategic Community Fuel break Improvement Project

Attn: Jeff Kwasny, Project Team Leader 

From: Four Winds Council of the Santa Lucia Mountains

 

Mr. Kwasny,

The Four Winds Council is a cooperative association of four spiritual centers located in the northern Santa Lucia Mountains. Each center is located either within or adjacent to the Ventana Wilderness and the Los Padres National Forest. The membership includes:

New Camaldoli Hermitage, Esalen Institute, Esselen Tribe of Monterey, Tassajara Zen Mountain Center.

Our association of four spiritual centers in the Ventana Wilderness is in agreement in supporting a fundamental shift from fire suppression and fire “fighting” to responsible fire management. We recommend and support the following…

• Simultaneous protection for human communities at-risk and for wilderness values.

• The identification and mapping of culturally and environmentally sensitive areas in order to afford them particular protection. This would include the re-establishment of the site-stewardship program.

• Reintroduction and implementation of indigenous cultural practices for fire management. This would include hand-pruning and clearing and the use of live control burns. These practices should be used in fuel reduction around sensitive cultural and environmental sites as well.

• Adherence to minimal tool requirements in the wilderness in order to minimize the damage that heavy mechanized equipment can do to the land.

• The creation of meandering shaded fuel breaks as per the new Forest Service landscape design & plan.

• A trail-based approach that clears and maintains existing trail systems so that they can be used for recreation, for spiritual use, and also for access and as fuel breaks in an overall fire management plan. [In the Palo Colorado area, the Skinner Ridge Trail (north from the end of the intended fuelbreak at Devil’s Peak), Turner Creek Trail, Little Sur Trail, and Mt. Manuel Trail—at least from its junction with the Little Sur Trail to Launtz Camp—are particularly important.]

• [The clarification of “(2b) Palo Colorado to Big Sur Vicinity—Wilderness.” Right now the first paragraph of this section reads that “a maximum 150 foot wide fuelbreak” should be established “on the historic fireline between Post Summit and the Little Sur River, a distance of 1.8 miles.” This paragraph should be corrected to read “…between Post Summit and the North Fork of the Little Sur River.” Omitting the North Fork creates unnecessary confusion and omits the question of how the fuelbreak would cross Launtz Ridge.]

• The establishment of a permanent and local brush disposal crew. In addition to maintaining shaded fuel breaks this local work-force would work on hazard-reduction in forest service camps, on fuel-reduction around sensitive cultural and environmental sites, and on helping train local volunteer crews.

• The development of dedicated local volunteer crews (perhaps organized through the agency of local fire-brigades) who would contribute to the maintenance of the fuel breaks that protect their own communities.

• The completion of a fire-management atlas that documents past fire history and strategies, while also being topographically site-specific.

• A shift in funding-allotment so that a significant percentage of funding currently dedicated only to emergency fire “fighting” can be transferred to pro-active fire management practices.

• The utilization of other funding channels, such as the Healthy Forest Initiative, to help fund both a local brush disposal crew and the education and training of local volunteer support crews.

• Continued emphasis upon an integrated “all-lands” approach to fire management. Dedication of significant educational resources to encourage private landowners to fully participate. [In the Palo Colorado area, this includes private landowners on Mescal Ridge, which was such an important fireline during the Basin Fire. In a wildfire, the terrain between Post Summit and the North Fork of the Little Sur is so difficult to defend that it seems equally important to have the Mescal Ridge fuelbreak simultaneously prepared as well.]

• Continuance and even enhancement of the collaborative efforts already taking place among public and private agencies.

Thank you for the opportunity to submit our comments. Our view is that it isn’t a matter of whether a fuel break improvement project should be done, but rather of how it should be done. Let’s take the opportunity to do our best work — work that will last. 

Sincerely,

Esselen Tribe of Monterey County

38655 Tassajara Rd

Carmel Valley, CA 93924

831-659-5165

Tom Little Bear Nason

Tassajara Zen Mountain Center

38676 Tassajara Rd

Carmel Valley, CA 93924

831-659-2229

Shinchi Linda Galijan, Director

Esalen Institute

55000 Highway 1

Big Sur, CA 93920

831-667-3000

Gordon Wheeler, President

New Camaldoli Hermitage

62475 Highway 1

Big Sur, CA 93920

831-667-2456

Fr. Robert Hale, OSB Cam., Prior