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WORLDWIDE FOREST/BIODIVERSITY CAMPAIGN NEWS

America Deals with Facing Nature's Limits

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Forest Networking a Project of Ecological Enterprises

http://forests.org/

1/3/98

OVERVIEW, SOURCE & COMMENTARY by EE

America's prosperity was largely built upon non-sustainable resource

exploitation. As with all ecological systems, these resources are

exhaustible, and increasingly this is becoming apparent. The Los

Angeles Times makes the point that America is having to face nature's

limits, as 70% of forest watersheds are ecologically distressed and

40% of U.S. fish stocks are depleted. The case for prudent limits on

consumption is made, while noting that failure to do so will mean

greater anguish for (not so) future generations.

g.b.

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Title: Facing Nature's Limits

Source: Los Angeles Times

Status: Contact source for permission to reprint

Date: Saturday, January 3, 1998

That the coming century will be an era of limits is becoming clearer:

Washington's decision this week to slash the allowable catch by

Pacific commercial fishing boats so dwindling stocks can regenerate is

only the latest bit of evidence. Last year, the Clinton administration

scuttled a Forest Service plan to increase logging in 12 Sierra Nevada

national forests and canceled timber sales on public land to allow

trees to mature and to prevent further erosion and watershed damage.

Americans may be embracing a new paradigm for natural resource use.

With signs of decline obvious, federal and state agencies are

beginning to take difficult yet necessary steps to ensure that timber,

fish, wildlife and grazing land remain available to future

generations.

As this century dawned, the nation's natural resources seemed

inexhaustible. Domestic supplies of coal and iron stoked industrial

growth and urbanization on an unprecedented scale. Extractive

industries, including logging and mining, saw sustained increases and

American farm production had become the envy of the world.

Homestead laws had opened farmland to those who would work it, and

nominal royalties or payments bought the right to graze, mine, log or

fish on federal land or in federal waters. Those policies fostered

more than a century of agricultural and industrial growth. But we now

see their cost in damaged range land, eroded forest watersheds and

depleted fish supplies along both coasts.

The Bureau of Land Management estimates that half of public grazing

lands and almost 70% of forest watersheds are ecologically distressed.

Overfishing has depleted 40% of U.S. fish stocks, and 43% more are

being taken at the maximum sustainable rate. The list goes on.

In the December issue of the Atlantic Monthly, biologist Paul Ehrlich

and four colleagues persuasively argue that overconsumption is an

immediate threat to biodiversity and biological resources. There can

be no "middle way," they contend, no more splitting the difference

between those who argue our resource base is ample and those who see

the signs of decline. Instead, we will have to take hard steps to slow

resource consumption to maintain continued supplies.

That is what's starting to happen now. The new fishing limits, which

took effect Thursday, require commercial fishers to reduce by up to

65% their haul of several species known as ground fish, including cod,

Dover sole and various rockfish. These fish represent half the total

value of California's annual commercial fish harvest. This limit

follows 1997 action by the California Legislature to increase

protection for both squid and abalone, as well as recent federal

limits on commercial fishing in New England.

Laws protecting endangered species have resulted in limits on logging

in some areas and a meritorious attempt in Congress to safeguard

forests in roadless areas. Reform of grazing and mining on federal

land remains a key task for Congress.

Such resource policy shifts--those already implemented as well as

those that should be--have disrupted livelihoods, families and

communities. These costs should be mitigated to the greatest degree

possible, with job training, extended unemployment benefits, tax

breaks for job creation and more. But without prudent limits,

continued resource degradation and more widespread economic disruption

are all too likely. Some pain now will save the next generation

greater anguish.

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