California allocates $ 170 million on thin forests, vegetation

Gover Gavin Newsom today has signed a new legislation that will provide more than $ 170 million state funding to help prevent wild fires while signing an order aimed at accelerating work by relieving environmental resolution.

Financing – which the democratic governor said it was part of a wider effort to better protect communities before the peak fire season – as the state is under exceptional pressure after January infernos, which devastate communities in Los Angeles.

California has already experienced its second most destructive fire year of the record, with more than 16,000 homes and other buildings damaged or destroyed by the two main fires in the Los Angeles region. Most of the destruction occurred in neighborhoods where development meets with Wildland, a high-risk area known as Wildland-Brban interfaceS

The money comes from a A $ 10 billion bond measure For environmental projects approved by California voters last year.

Authorized as part of a Fastly traced, an early -action budget bill approved by the legislature, the funds will be paid to Six conservations across CaliforniaS Agencies that work within the governor’s resources Agency will manage the removal of vegetation and thinning of forests in their regions.

At least half, $ 85 million, will be directed to conservations in southern California, while $ 54 will focus on Sierra Nevada. Financing approval comes after Newsom in March declared an emergency To clear a flammable brush.

“With this last round of funding, we continue to increase the speed and amount of forest management and vegetation, which are essential to the protection of communities,” Newsom says in a written statement. “We do not leave a stone overturned – including cutting bureaucracy – in our mission to ensure that our neighborhoods are protected from destructive fires.”

The challenge of preventing a fire in California, which experts claim to be impaired by climate change, is becoming more political. During the first term of President Donald J. Trump, the president repeatedly blames wild fires in California, who fail to manage vegetation growth, although the greater part of the forest lands in the state is under federal and not the state owned.

“You have to clean your floors, you have to clean your forests,” Trump said during a 2020 campaign speech, According to PoliticoS “There are many, many years of leaves and broken trees and they are like, so flammable, you touch them and it goes up.”

As a result of Los Angeles fires, Trump also incorrectly accused state water policies for flames and threatened To abandon federal assistance unless the state is engaged in various policies related to fires.

About $ 31 million is included in the conservation of Sierra Nevada, the conservation of Santa Monica Mountains, the state coastal conservation and the rivers of San Gabriel and Lower Los Angeles and the conservation of the mountains. The California Conservation Tahoe and the conservation of the San Diego River will receive about $ 23 million each.

In addition to the legislation, Newsom has signed Enforcement order This allowed fire prevention projects to take advantage of optimizing the provisions outlined in its March for an emergency proclamation, which stopped some environmental laws, including the California Environmental Law and the California Coastal Act, regarded as urgent.

“Unfortunately, this money will focus on projects for projects that review environmental and forest damage,” says Shay Wolf, Director of Climate Science at the Biological Diversity Center in the field of biodiversity. “This funding is doubled for the destruction of forests, and does not invest in real fire safety measures such as home hardening in communities.”

Newsom earlier this year promised $ 2.5 billion For various fire resistance projects. The prescribed burns, a land management tool designed to reduce fuel loads, are an essential part of the state’s strategy.

The season of wild fire begins earlier and lasts longer, exacerbated by climate changeS The changed cycles of dry and wet years accumulate vegetation, which is vulnerable to fire, and wild fires in California act more irregularly and burn longer.