Victory for US Timber Interests, More Widespread Northwest Logging

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WORLDWIDE FOREST/BIODIVERSITY CAMPAIGN NEWS

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Forest Networking a Project of Ecological Enterprises

4/25/96

OVERVIEW & SOURCE

CNN Environmental News reports on a United States federal appeals

court ruling that "allows logging of wide areas of old-growth

forests in the Pacific Northwest without environmental

restrictions." This despite that fact that the Northwest region

of the United States contains some of the largest remaining tracts

of old growth forest (the total old growth remaining in the United

States is in single digit percentages of original extent). It is

criminal that some of the last late successional, intact virgin

forests in the United States continue to be industrially harvested

as if they were plentiful. It is much harder to recreate an

ecosystem than manage an existing intact one. Shame on America.

g.b.

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CNN Environment News

Court says law allows widespread Northwest logging

April 25, 1996

Web posted at: 10:55 a.m. EDT at:

http://cnn.com/wires/EARTH/04-25/northwest.logging/index.html

SAN FRANCISCO, California (AP) -- In a victory for timber

interests, a federal appeals court ruled Wednesday that a new law

allows logging of wide areas of old-growth forests in the Pacific

Northwest without environmental restrictions.

The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said the law, signed by

President Clinton last July, requires the government to allow

logging on more than 60 tracts for which timber sales agreements

were reached between 1991 and July 1995. Tree-cutting and timber

removal on the tracts has been blocked by the Clinton

administration.

The sales, in national forests in Oregon and Washington and on

Bureau of Land Management land in western Oregon, total 246

million board-feet of timber. Authority to log an additional 410

million board-feet in the area was also required by the law and

was not disputed by the administration.

Although the new law was known as the "salvage rider" and

authorized logging of dead and diseased trees on various federal

lands, the timber affected by Wednesday's ruling is healthy, said

environmental groups and the timber industry.

"This case has nothing to do with salvage. That's always been the

subterfuge," said attorney Kristin Boyles of the Sierra Club Legal

Defense Fund. "These are healthy old- growth trees. That's why the

timber industry wants them."

She said the disputed sales were "the worst of the worst"

environmentally. But Chris West, vice president of the industry-

sponsored Northwest Forestry Association, said the logging, which

started last October, was "environmentally benign."

The effect of the law and its effect on more than just "salvage"

logging "was never hidden from the public," West said. "It was

fully debated and the president knew all about it when he signed

the bill."

The timber was sold to high bidders starting in 1989, but logging

has been delayed by disputes over protection of the northern

spotted owl and other wildlife.

Clinton first vetoed a bill containing the salvage rider, but

signed a budget-cutting measure that included the rider on July

27. The president expressed regret for that action after a ruling

last September by U.S. District Judge Michael Hogan of Portland,

agreeing with industry arguments on the breadth of the law.

Logging was authorized after both Hogan and the appeals court

refused to block the effect of the judge's ruling while the

government appealed.

In Wednesday's 3-0 decision, the court said the salvage rider

unfroze not only timber sales from the 1989-90 period, when

Congress first sought to speed up logging in the area, but also

1991-95 sales in the same region.

"It is not our role to determine the wisdom of (the law), only

its meaning," said the opinion by Judge Michael Hawkins, a

Clinton appointee. He said the language of the law "clearly

authorizes the release of timber sales 'offered or awarded' up

until the date of enactment."

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