Allen Richmond talks about a forest management project which the university is undertaking in cooperation with the state of Alaska, studying ways to maximize firewood supplies while improving Interior forests, demonstrating timber harvesting practices for fuel wood purposes that would enhance the growth on the forests in the Fairbanks area, project crews being hired to remove all the birch, aspen and dead spruce from a 95 acre tract in the Bonanza Experimental Forest, the usable wood will be hauled to areas for easy access by wood gatherers, the commercial quality spruce will be left for future harvest, the state charging a fee to partially offset the increased costs, permitting for wood from these projects through the state area forestry office, permit holders being allowed to get up to 10 cords of wood per permit from the state, determining how much money they can actually recover from the contract costs of harvesting, the procedure involved in this first project, someone in the field gaging the volume of wood permit holders remove and punching the card to get a good idea how much wood is being taken out, increasing the amount of firewood available to the public, increasing protection of the local forests, selected trees being removed allowing the remaining trees to grow into more valuable timber, protecting the forest by allowing the state to control what is being cut off of the land, problems in the past with people cutting unmarked trees or clear cutting, and giving the state control of what is actually taken and the volume of product that is taken out.
