Time For a Little Trip, care to join us? Forests of the Mat-Su Valley.
| Though much of Alaska is fairly barren of good forest land, there are other areas with immense forests. |  |
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The Mat-Su Valley in South Central Alaska is one of the better areas with extensive forests growing on good soils, fueled with moderate climate and ample moisture We encountered plenty of this moisture as we did a little tromping through the forests. |
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Most of the forests that we encountered in this area were rather consistent with miles and miles of White Birch and Spruce. Both of which are good trees, though they are short lived species, and most of the stands that we encountered were far past their lifespans, at least for a healthy forest. |
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It does concern me in that as they die off slowly they are generally replaced with worthless brush, rather than the lush regeneration that would be produced with wise forest management. |
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This is also a concern in that often times when a forest is stressed like this an outbreak of disease or insects will cause mass die offs followed by large forest fires, similar to what we are seeing in much of the inter-mountain western states in the lower 48 with bark beetles. |
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Much of the problem with this lack of management is the lack of good markets for forest products in the area. |
| Of course this is one of those catch 22 type situations where industries are not likely to locate here until they see an effort from the state, national and native agencies who own much of this land to do something, and these agencies are not likely to do much until they see an available market. |  |
Hopefully a strong leader will step forward to spearhead this situation before it is too late for the forest.
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