Fire plan would cut 2.4 million New Jersey Pinelands trees

By WAYNE PARRY
Associated Press

BASS RIVER TOWNSHIP, N.J. (AP) — Up to 2.4 million trees would be cut down as part of a project to prevent major wildfires in a federally protected New Jersey forest heralded as a unique environmental treasure. New Jersey environmental officials say the plan to thin trees in the Bass River State Forest will better protect against catastrophic wildfires. They say it will mostly affect small, scrawny trees, not the towering giants for which the Pinelands National Refuge is known and loved. Some environmentalists say it’s a reasonable response to the dangers of wildfires. Others call it a waste of trees that imperils the globe in an era of climate change.