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FOREST
CONSERVATION NEWS TODAY
Proposal:
Give Timber Priority Over Ecosystem Health in U.S. Forests
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Forest
Networking a Project of Forests.org, Inc.
http://forests.org/ -- Forest Conservation
Portal
http://forests.org/links/ -- Forest
Conservation Links
06/15/01
OVERVIEW
& COMMENTARY by Forests.org
President
Bush is poised to make good on his campaign pledge to put
America's
National Forests back to work. A new
Bush administration
proposal
would drop policy that gives ecological sustainability
priority
over economic and social activities in the country's 192-
million-acre
national forest system. The draft rules
would also
reduce
the public's ability to comment on forest plans, eliminate
safeguards
for wildlife and drop required environmental impact
statements
for new forest plans. The Toxic Texan
continues to govern
as
though ecosystems have little value. In
the Bush worldview, as
long as
the economy is strong, all else will take care of itself.
This is
tantamount to a global death wish.
Without water, air, soil
and
biota there can be NO economy. No
ecosystems, no economy.
Period.
g.b.
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ITEM #1
Title: Forest Service Mulls Policy Change
Source: Copyright 2001 Associated Press
Date: June 14, 2001
Byline: KATHERINE PFLEGER, Associated Press Writer
WASHINGTON
(AP) - The Forest Service is considering scrapping a
policy
of the Clinton administration that requires giving ecological
considerations
priority over logging, recreation and other uses of
the
country's 155 national forests.
The
Associated Press obtained a copy of an internal draft report
detailing
possible changes in management of national forests. Agency
officials
emphasized it is a draft and could face multiple revisions.
The
goal is to write a ``plain English rule'' that can be used to
make
decisions that reflect local and national viewpoints, said Sally
Collins,
associate deputy chief of the 192-million-acre national
forest
system.
``We
want to make sure we have the resources going to the ground,
(rather
than) spending it all on planning,'' Collins said Thursday.
``There
is a huge desire to make sure we make the right decisions.''
Conservation
groups say they're worried.
``This
is taking the Forest Service back more than 20 years to time
when
timber was king of the national forests,'' said Mike Anderson,
senior
research analyst with the Wilderness Society.
The
draft, dated Monday, gives environmentalists another reason to
criticize
President Bush, who already is under fire for an energy
plan
that includes expanded oil and gas drilling on public land and
breaks
a campaign pledge to regulate carbon dioxide emissions.
The
Forest Service is working on revisions to what many
conservationists
consider the key element of President Clinton's
environmental
legacy: the ``roadless rule'' that bans road
construction
and most logging and mining on a third of all national
forestland.
The agency hopes to have the revisions completed by the
end of
the month.
The
Clinton policy on forest management, issued in November, allowed
restrictions
on logging, skiing, hiking and other activities if
managers
believed the ecosystem could be permanently harmed. The
order
ended a previous requirement that managers give equal weight to
ecosystem
health and other activities.
The
draft eliminates the priority given to ecosystem health. It also
removes
specific requirements for scientific review when officials
make
decisions about how to manage national forests, instead offering
broad
guidelines for managers to follow.
Environmentalists
are particularly worried about what they see as an
attempt
to dramatically reduce public comment periods and undermine
the
Endangered Species Act. The draft says management plans ``are not
subject''
to consultation from the agencies that protect endangered
species.
Collins
said the agency has no intention of limiting public comment
but
wants to provide a forest planning process that can be
efficiently
implemented by managers. She said the agency remains
committed
to the ecological health of national forests and to
protecting
endangered species.
She
also said decisions on how to manage forests still will be based
on
science, although exactly how local officials seek that input
might
not be prescribed by the rules.
The
timber industry is hopeful the final version of the rules will
return
the federal forests to a system that allows multiple uses.
``Clearly
the Clinton administration had an agenda that they wanted
to
radically change the direction of the Forest Service,'' said Chris
West,
vice president of the American Forest Resource Council.
Not all
conservation organizations approved of the way the Clinton
administration
revised the management rules. The Western
Environmental
Law Center, on behalf of a dozen conservation groups,
filed a
federal lawsuit in February saying the rules gave the Forest
Service
too much authority.
The
draft proposal is being circulated for comment within the Forest
Service.
The agency hopes to have a final proposal and begin taking
public
comment in August.
ITEM #2
Title: Conservation groups wary of forest-policy
plan
Source: Copyright 2001 Denver Post
Date: June 15, 2001
Byline: Bill McAllister, Denver Post Washington
Bureau Chief
Friday,
June 15, 2001 - WASHINGTON - The Bush administration may drop
a
Clinton administration policy that would have given ecological
considerations
priority over economic and social activities in the
country's
155 national forests.
Conservation
groups criticized the idea, contained in proposed
planning
regulations for national forests circulated this week among
Forest
Service officials.
The
draft rules would reduce the public's ability to comment on
forest
plans, eliminate safeguards for wildlife and drop the current
requirement
for environmental impact statements for new forest plans,
environmentalists
said.
U.S.
Forest Service spokeswoman Heidi Valetkevitch denied
conservationists'
claims that policies have already been changed.
"It's
very, very preliminary at this stage," she said.
She did
acknowledge that one major change is possible. Forest Service
Chief
Dale Bosworth had signaled previously that he favors a change
to one
key standard that had been proposed by the Clinton
administration,
Valetkevitch said.
Bosworth
has proposed elevating social and economic sustainability to
the
same level as ecological sustainability in future forest plans.
In
November, the Clinton administration issued a draft rule that
emphasized
ecological sustainability, a rule that conservationists
applauded
for giving top priority to forests' flora and fauna.
Conservationists
fear that the new rules will allow foresters to give
higher
priority to economic issues, such as maintaining logging
towns'
economies or opening the forests to more recreational uses.
Bosworth
wants to give the agency "a common-sense rule" that will
allow
foresters to spend more time "managing resources" and less time
on
planning, Valetkevitch said.
"The
proposal effectively throws out two decades of environmental
protections
for America's national forests," said Jane Danowitz,
director
of the Heritage Forests Campaign. "Once again, the Bush
administration
has given its friends in the timber industry the final
answer
in determining the fate our national forests."
Michael
Francis, a Wilderness Society spokesman, said he feared that
the new
rules would return forest policy "to the 1960s, where a
little
cadre of timber company officials and road planners took
charge
of forest policy. The public was just left out of the
process."
Josh
Penry, a spokesman for Rep. Scott McInnis, R-Colo., chairman of
the
House Forests Subcommittee, said Forest Service officials had
warned
lawmakers that they were likely to hear complaints about the
draft.
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