If a tree falls in the Yosemite Valley, is the view better for it? Yosemite National Park officials think so, and they're hoping to improve nearly 100 viewsheds in the park by cutting down hundreds of trees.
The goal, park planners say, is to restore some of the viewsheds, primarily in the Yosemite Valley, that have been obscured, if not lost, by trees growing unfettered. While Native Americans who lived in the valley used fire to clear forests and keep meadows open, since the landscape was set aside in 1864 by President Lincoln, "(L)and management practices that followed have altered the park’s scenery over the past 150 years."
There are few places on the Valley floor from which upper and lower Yosemite Falls are visible. The “Postage Stamp” vista of El Capitan, made famous in the 1934 one-cent postage stamp engraving from an 1868 Carleton Watkins photograph, is now obscured by conifers. Many vistas are obscured due to conifer encroachment in meadows. Two-thirds of the meadowland in Yosemite Valley has also been lost to conifer encroachment since 1865.
Without fire, conifers have been encroaching on meadows in the Yosemite Valley, the park's environmental assessment on a Scenic Vista Managment Plan notes, and visitors are impacted by having fewer viewpoints to enjoy. Additionally, those viewpoints that remain are shrinking, and "frequently exhibit crowding, compromising visitor safety."
Under the park's preferred approach to improving viewsheds in the Yosemite Valley and Mariposa Grove areas, "...staff would clear and maintain about 93 obscured or partially obscured sites, at a rate of about 30 initial clearings per year."
If there are no hitches, the sound of chainsaws biting into trees, and trees crashing to the ground, could be heard in the Yosemite Valley beginning in the fall of 2012.
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Comments
YNP wants to preserve a viewshed that would have remained throughout eternity if wildfires and indians were still there instead of whitemen and a national park?
I understand lessening the threat of fire and falling trees.
(I park in the historic, non-native, orchard parking lot under those scary apple tree limbs)
To cut down trees to preserve a view and or meadowlands in a National Park is wrong.
Article in LA Times:
http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-yosemite-trees-20110730,0,738606...
I don't understand why some don't see humans as part of nature-- just as fire,wind and everything else can alter the park why is it "wrong" for us to change it for the better. Improving the view of iconic stuctures or views that people come from all over the world to see is not wrong in my view( no pun intended". I understand everyone has an idea of what should or should not be done and to what extent.I would say clearing the most minimum amt. should be allowed.What if trees grew up and hid the view of Mt Rushmore-- should they be allowed to stay??
If logging a few trees to improve the view is so wrong, why do we keep the roads in the park or the concessions? They clearly do not belong in a such a setting... :) I'm a pragmatic, and I don't see the damage in cutting a few trees down as long as it's done right so that all of us can enjoy the park more.
Beware of the purists.