© Copyright 2001 USA TODAY
July 15, 2001
By Tom Kenworthy

The Bush administration has proposed rules for national forests that some environmentalists charge would weaken wildlife protection and favor commercial activities such as timber production.

The draft rules, now being circulated to U.S. Forest Service regional offices for review, would eliminate a long-standing requirement that the agency manage its 191 million acres to protect ''viability'' of wildlife. The rules also would drop a requirement imposed by the Clinton administration last year that ''ecological sustainability'' of resources be the overall goal of forest management.

Unless the rules are substantially changed, they ''would greatly reduce the protections we have now on national forests for both trees and wildlife,'' said Michael Francis, director of national forest policy for The Wilderness Society. Forest Service spokeswoman Heidi Valetkevitch said the proposed rules would make forest planning more efficient.

At issue are guidelines for how 10-year management plans should be drawn up for the 175 national forests and grasslands. Those plans govern activities from timber production to livestock grazing, recreation and protection of fish, wildlife and plants.

The Clinton administration last year finalized forest-planning rules, but they were suspended until the new administration could review them. Valetkevitch said the revisions will use ''the central concepts and philosophy'' of the Clinton rules. She stressed that ''this is a very first draft'' likely to be changed before being formally proposed in August.

''We want to spend less time on planning so it takes less time away from the agency's job of managing resources,'' she said.

The proposed rules are the latest in a series of administration moves that have upset environmentalists. Among the previous proposals are an energy plan that calls for intensified oil and gas drilling and opening Alaska's Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to oil exploration.

National forests now rival national parks in popularity. Surveys show that 7%-8% of Americans visit a national forest at least once a year, compared with 9% who visit a national park. By the Forest Service's estimate, individual recreational trips to the forests total nearly 860 million visits a year, the equivalent of more than three trips for every man, woman and child in America.

As national parks have restricted recreational uses such as snowmobiling, national forests have become refuges for more motorized recreation.

Of major concern to environmentalists in the proposed rules is the possible elimination of the wildlife-viability requirement. That has served as the foundation for important forest-management lawsuits, including those over protecting the northern spotted owl and old-growth forests in the Pacific Northwest.

The proposed changes also would weaken requirements for consultations with other federal agencies, a move environmentalists fear will erode endangered species protections. The changes also would shorten the public comment period on forest-plan changes. Error: Unable to read footer file.