[at-l] Wood stoves: a threat to the trail?

[Bob Cummings <ellen@clinic.net> (Bob C.)]

"...the forest can replenish the dead material taken and will support a modest
amount of use with not much degradation.  But go over that threshold and you get
catastrophic changes." says Papa Bear.

 And of course he is right. But lets put this in perspective. The paper
 companies and other big landowners in Maine harvest 6.1 million cords of wood a
 year.

 I've never carried a postal scale on the trail. But I'm guessing that a typical
 meal requires may be a half pound of wood, when using a Zip Stove. A cord of
 wood weighs a couple of tons or so. So a cord of wood will cook 8,000 meals.

 Let's assume that long distance hikers increase to the point where they cook 5
 million meals a year on the trail using a Zip Stove. BTW that assumes that the
 number of thru hikers attempts double to 10,000 a year, that all complete their
 hikes, that all cook two hot meals a day, and everyone gives up alcohol, white
 gas and environmentally damaging canisters and use nothing but wood to cook
 along the trail.

  All told, these hikers of the future would require just 1,250 cords of wood a
 year. Compared with the 6.1 million cords harvested in Maine alone (probably
 only god , Jim and Papa Bear know how many cords are harvested in other
 forested states like Georgia, North Carolina, Tenesssee, Pennsylvania, New York
 and New Hampshire...), I think Zip Stove user damage to the forest may be hard
 to calculate.

  Weary