Roadless area battleground moves to Capitol Hill
Copyright 2001, Environmental News Network
June 28, 2001
In a roadless area just west of Ketchikan, Alaska, the Gravina Island Timber Sale may go ahead this summer despite market.
A coalition of environmental groups is warning that the sale would log thousands of acres of old-growth rainforest from the heart of a 37,000-acre roadless area in the Tongass National Forest and carve almost 22 miles of new logging roads into the forest.
Clearcutting and roadbuilding in the steep terrain and severe climate of the Tongass will cause enormous damage to habitat critical to the Alexander Archipelago wolf, black bear, Sitka black-tailed deer, and nesting bald eagles, the groups caution.
Nearby native communities use the area for traditional hunting, fishing, and plant gathering, and the sale area contains sacred burial sites and historic fishing camps dating back more than3,000 years. Many residents of Ketchikan consider Gravina Island one of their primary places to hunt, hike, camp, fish, and kayak.
Logging roads on Gravina are only part of the development picture.
The federal government has allocated $20,443,000 toward constructing a bridge joining the Island of Gravina to Ketchikan on Revilla Island.
Led by the Alaska Rainforest Campaign and the national environmental group American Lands, 25 conservation, fishing, religious, and community groups Tuesday urged the U.S. Senate to protect millions of acres of roadless national forest lands, including Gravina Island.
The groups called upon the Senate Appropriations Committee, which begins deliberations on spending bills this week, to prohibit funding of timber projects in roadless areas. In particular, they see the Gravina Island Timber sale as a direct violation of the National Roadless Rule and the first test of the Bush administration's commitment to roadless protection.
Today, nearly 400,000 miles of roads — enough roads to circle the globe more than 15 times — criss-cross the National Forest System, the groups point out.
Logging national forests is a money-losing operation, conservationists say. A recent report by The Taxpayers for Common Sense has found that for fiscal year 1998 the Forest Service's timber-sale program lost more than $407 million, and the Forest Service under-reported its financial losses by more than two-thirds. The report shows that 105 of the 111 national forests failed to return as much money as they spent managing the timber program, and $779 taxpayer dollars were wasted on every logging job created by the timber-sale program.
Although the Clinton administration forged a roadless-area protection program over several years of public hearings that would make 58.5 million acres off limits to logging, conservation groups must still battle to preserve roadless areas like Gravina Island.
The Clinton-era plan has been suspended after several recent court challenges from timber interests, and U.S. Forest Service Chief Dale Bosworth has taken decisions on timber cutting in roadless areas into his own hands, pending the outcome of the legal disputes.
The American Forest and Paper Association, the timber industry trade group, says the roadless policy "confounds both science and common sense. Benign neglect will not restore healthy forests," the association declares. "Our national forests are experiencing the worst health crisis in their history with 65 million acres — one-third of our National Forest System — at catastrophic risk to wildfire, insect infestation, and disease. Yet rather than embracing a scientific approach to manage those lands, the Forest Service proposal would wall off 60 million acres and doom them to a cycle of overstocked stands, disease and insect infestation, and catastrophic wildfires."This viewpoint has led directly to legal challenges to the roadless plan in several states.
In a directive to his regional forest managers, Bosworth said, "It is necessary for the agency to act decisively, proactively, and with common sense to ensure that our efforts to protect roadless values will not be confined to legal proceedings in courtrooms scattered throughout the country."
Brian Vincent, California organizer for American Lands, has his doubts that timber-rich roadless areas will be preserved. "It is fair to ask then, why — if the chief is indeed committed to protecting roadless areas — his agency is moving forward with destructive timber sales in some of the nation's most pristine forests, including projects in Alaska and California?"
Timber sales in California's Six Rivers and Shasta-Trinity National Forests are located in the largest concentration of ancient forest in the region, including unprotected roadless areas adjacent to the Trinity Alps Wilderness, Vincent says.
Rare orchids, salamanders, Northern spotted owls, Pacific fishers, pine martens, wolverines, and salmon are threatened by proposed logging and road construction. Vincent says drinking water supplies in Hoopa, Denny, and other Trinity River communities are also at risk.
The Forest Service claims that logging in the area is necessary to stop wildfires. The conservationists disagree, saying there is no conclusive evidence that logging reduces wildfire risk.
Chief Bosworth wrote in his June 7 letter to Forest Service staff, "I am instructing you to ensure that forest-plan amendments and revisions consider, as appropriate, the long-term protection and management of unroaded portions of inventoried roadless areas. This may include a determination that some roadless areas be recommended for permanent wilderness designation."
The conservationist groups say that Chief Bosworth now has the discretion to shelve projects that would harm fish, wildlife, and forest ecosystem values. They urged the chief to use his power to uphold the spirit and intent of President Clinton's roadless rule.
"Our National Forest System is Nature's work of art, and roadless areas are as treasured as the paintings of Picasso, Monet, and Van Gogh. Building roads and logging in these pristine forests would be like taking a knife to the Mona Lisa," said Vincent.
The following groups are urging the Senate not to fund timber cutting and roadbuilding in national forests: Alaska Rainforest Campaign, American Lands, Ancient Forest International, California Native Plant Society, California Wilderness Coalition, Center for Biological Diversity, Citizens for Better Forestry, Environmental Protection Information Center, Forest Forever, Forest Issues Group, Klamath Forest Alliance, Klamath-Siskiyou Wildlands Center, Legacy, Native Forest Network, Northcoast Environmental Center, Plight of The Redwoods Campaign, Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility, Religious Campaign for Forest Conservation, San Bruno Mountain Watch, Sequoia Forest Alliance, Sierra Club, South Yuba River Citizens League, Tule River Conservancy, Western Fire Ecology Center, Wildlife Alive