BUSH ADMINISTRATION PREPARES TO HAND OVER AMERICA'S LAST WILD FORESTS TO TIMBER INDUSTRY

New Proposal Guts the Widely Popular
Roadless Area Conservation Rule


WASHINGTON DC - The Bush Administration proposed massive changes to the Roadless Area Conservation Rule yesterday that erode protections for 58.5 million acres of pristine National Forests in 39 states, including 9.3 million acres of North America's only coastal temperate rainforest - Alaska's Tongass National Forest.

The Roadless Rule was approved in January 2001 following years of scientific study, more than 600 public meetings across the country and 1.6 million official public comments. Washington State residents submitted more than 60,000 comments. While protecting the last one-third of our threatened national forests from most commercial activity, the rule allows new roads to be constructed in order to fight fires, and ensure public health and safety.

"The Bush Administration is completely disregarding the will of the American public as well as that of Washington State residents," said John Leary, Director of the Wild Washington Campaign. "They are undermining the most popular federal rulemaking in history and showing their true colors in regard to public involvement in land management."

What kind of changes? And what affect will it have on the environment?

Need more information to make an informed decision whether to take up arms, or not. (Figuratively speaking)

Harley,
Basically two changes:

1. Opening up the Tongass National Forest to roadbuilding and by extension logging.

2. Essentially keeping the Clinton roadless rules intact BUT giving the Governors of the states where the Nat. Forest are the option of building roads.

My beef, and Grandpa it would be my beef no matter which Party held the Presidency. It essentially turns National Forests into State Forests. If the Governors have the ability to override the roadless rules, they essentially have gained a management "veto" over the National Forest. Secondly, I have always been concerned with the Tongass resource and what the Wood Products Industry has done with the resource. A majority (pretty vast majority BTW) have been sent to Japan as raw logs. The remainder were generally used in the Pulp and Paper Mills in Sitka and Ketchican. Pretty wasteful if you ask me for some of the most amazing stands of Sitka Spruce in the world.

gotta agree with Eddie on the Tongass deal..I also would like to research this some more to see what the rest of it is all about. I think the pendulum swung too far one way and hope it doesn't swing too far the other way now. I suspect that this "new" policy didn't hatch overnight however. Better do some homework on this one. Cutting down old growth sucks and too much of it is happening around the world. Selling raw logs to Japan is really selling out our natural resources for a buck. Just like our fisheries going to Japan ...Lots of species bordering extinction to satisfy the Japanese appetite for fish. Seaweed for sushi...Sea Urchin eggs for sushi....antlers and bear parts for bigger boners??? Draw the line somewhere please....

Grandpa, good to hear from you again, however, you ARE showing your age, I haven't heard the term boner in years

Not sure where I stand. Our forests need to be thinned for sure. Our 50 years of total suppression of fires has allowed our forests to be overrun by undergrowth and brush. When a fire does happen, they are usually massive wild fires on a huge scale due to inaccessability and the massive amounts of fuel on the ground. Before this era of total suppression, this didn't happen. A properly thinned and maintained forest will not burn out of control. Used to be you could walk through the forest anywhere you wanted to. Now, you couldn't get through the brush if you tried. This is because due to the total suppression of fire our forest canopies are so thick, that sunlight cannot reach the forest floor. Therefore, new trees cannot grow, but the dry brush flurishes and takes over the forest floor providing vast amounts of fuel for the wild fire waiting to happen. This is one reason why the Forest Service and other fire fighting agencies are starting to rethink their policies on fire supression in favor of natural fire thinning and thinning by saw.

Should individual states have control over national forests? I don't think that is such a good idea. This one will take time and more information to figure out what the agenda really is about. Building roads is not such a bad thing. I for one would like to be able to access the forest lands and enjoy them. Why else do we keep them if not for enjoyment?

Well if you care about the enviroment at all you better vote him out next term. If you want there to be wild salmon 10 years from now you better vote him out..

Yeah, if hes elected again our country will make southern Iraq look like the garden of Eden.

Funny you should mention Iraq and the garden of eden.. Sometime go read biblical account concerning the location of the garden.

Here is an article that shows what happens when the Forest Service cuts sweet deals with the timber companies. Notice how they privatize the profits and socialize the costs.

http://www.fseee.org/index.html?page=http%3A//www.fseee.org/forestmag/0302shelton.shtml

Ha, if you read your Bible at all, you will find that southern Iraq is exactly where the Garden of Eden was actually located. The only thing growing there now is tank tracks!!

Keta.. Thats an extremely sad story and EXTREMELY!!! typical of how our forests, fisheries and as far as I know all natural resource extraction has been here in the northwest. Now we are doing the same thing with urban expansion. It is a money grubbing political game.
A lot of people badmouth enviromentalists and conservationists but they are the only reason we have anything left..

Down here is SW Washington we have a large gravel company that operating in the floodplain of a river and causing that river sever damage. Thie HCP ,Habitat conservation plan, is a joke and unless something is done soon well he will destroy the river more than he already has. This guy is a criminal at heart and deed if not in law. It is my opinion he needs to be in jail for his past actions.

This is a never ending battle to keep oru government fromallowing the destructionof our natural enviroment by privaye companies that are raking in the millions.. I wish it was just the enviromental front on which these things were happening...
If they are not careful they will push us to revolt..

That's why fisheries managers are so grumpy (never mind the rest): not only are they at the bottom of the "science pile" (would a chemist tell his child to get a degree in fisheries?), they accomplish nothing. Like the old ladies say, there's not many fisheries left. Lots of little trees, though . . .

Here ya go eddie, you get to hear it twice in one thread.

Men have two emotions: Hungry and Horny.
If you see him without a boner, make him
a sandwich!

That's good..Personally I'll take a good boner over a sandwich any day.

The skokomish watershed has the heaalthiast fishery out of all the canal tribs even with simpsons bad practice.

The skokomish tribe,comercial fishermen and the hatchery at the bottom have done in the south fork salmon stocks.not simpson.

the n. fork is the victim of another dam.

That dam is one of the big reasons that they are expeiraincing the build up of sediment.Two thirds of the water that used to flow through the said problem erea is now diverted over the hill to create power.the diversion of this water has allowed the sediment to build up causing the flooding.

I know this watershed from top to bottom and will be the first to agree that what simpson has done is ugly.But mr. tree planters report is far from the truth.Just once I would like to see some unbiased reporting.

We over here do not feel the danger of wild fires.Our neighbors to the east and south do.They deserve the right to petition to go in and thin and do preventive measures to protect there properties.