Loggers Sue Forest Service Over Religion of `Deep Ecology'
12/19/99
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Title: Loggers sue over timber appeals
Source: The Associated Press
Status: Copyright 1999, contact source for permission to reprint
Date: December 19, 1999
The feud between environmentalists and loggers over commercial tree-
cutting in Minnesota's forests is being transformed into a fight over
the separation of church and state.
A group of loggers has filed a lawsuit against the U.S. Forest
Service and two environmental groups, claiming the Forest Service has
buckled to the groups' philosophy of ``deep ecology,'' which regards
the natural world as sacred.
That philosophy, the lawsuit maintains, amounts to a religion. And
that means the Forest Service has violated the First Amendment
prohibition on government favoring or endorsing one religion over
another, it claims.
The loggers want a federal judge to stop the environmentalists and
the government from limiting access to timber unless they can prove
they are acting for nonreligious reasons. They also are asking for
$600,000 in damages to make up lost business.
``It's so ludicrous,'' said Ray Fenner, executive director of St.
Paul-based Superior Wilderness Action Network, one of the groups
being sued. The other is New Mexico-based Forest Guardians.
``If this goes any further, every U.S. citizen should be scared to
death,'' Fenner said.
All three defendants have asked the court to dismiss the case, saying
it is meritless.
The heart of the case is whether ``deep ecology'' is religious at
all.
``Of course not,'' said Michael Pinto, president of the Institute for
Deep Ecology based in Occidental, Calif. ``Religion is faith-based.
Deep ecology is not.''
Pinto says the philosophy, which has attracted worldwide interest
since being introduced in the 1970s, is simply an insightful way of
looking at the interconnectedness of human beings and nature.
But the loggers argue that it is similar to Native American religions
that place nature at the center of creation.
Bron Taylor, A professor of environmental studies, religion and earth
ethics at the University of Wisconsin at Oshkosh, Bron Taylor, said
deep ecology could be considered a religion - if a court's definition
didn't require a belief in divine beings.
``Much environmentalism draws upon the idea that nature is sacred,''
says Taylor, who has written and taught extensively on the subject.
Forest Guardians, a 10-year-old Santa Fe, N.M.-based group that wants
to end commercial logging in national forests, has challenged about
300 federal timber sales in the last three years but has won only
about 50.
Superior Wilderness Action Network has filed about 12 challenges but
Fenner counts just one outright victory.
Still, to loggers even delays can mean a big financial loss, said
Larry Jones, executive director of the Tower-based Associated
Contract Loggers, a coalition of individual loggers and companies
that filed the lawsuit.
``If I lose a month of production, that's 10 percent of my revenue,''
Jones said.
Logging in Minnesota's national forests has dropped by nearly 25
percent over the last four years. Nationally, only about 4 percent of
logging is done on federal land. But some loggers in northern
Minnesota rely on national forests for 40 percent to 50 percent of
their income, Jones said.
Forests cover 33 percent of Minnesota's land area, or about 16.7
million acres. The Forest Service owns 12.4 percent of the land.
The case could have far-reaching implications, said Michael Stokes
Paulsen, a University of Minnesota law professor and national expert
on law and religion.
If loggers were to win, Baptists could be sued for lobbying for
gambling restrictions, or Catholics could be sued for promoting
restrictions on partial-birth abortion, he said.
``Who knows?'' he said. ``Maybe baseball fans could be sued if their
fervent devotion to a team led to a bond referendum for a new
stadium.''