Mid-term election results called ‘political Armageddon for forests’

Washington, DC, Nov. 7— Today, forest protection groups held rallies and other events across the country to demonstrate against the George W. Bush Administration’s “Healthy Forest” logging plan and to profile examples of egregious logging projects that will multiply under Bush’s plan. As part of this National Day of Action, groups targeted key members of Congress to stop a legislative compromise that would dramatically increase logging on public lands. The groups spent the day holding rallies and flooding congressional offices with calls urging members to oppose any deal that would escalate logging.

Conservation groups warned that the mid-term elections on Nov. 5, in which GOP seizure of the Senate and additional gains in the House delivered the President a mandate, could spell disaster for forests. They fear the Bush Healthy Forest Initiative could gather momentum because Democrats, shaken from their stunning losses at the polls, may capitulate to an emboldened White House.

In October, the House Resources Committee passed Rep. McInnis’ pro-logging legislation. That bill, HR5319, would undermine essential environmental safeguards for public lands and block citizen’s efforts to protect National Forests. HR5319 is consistent with the Bush Administration’s Healthy Forest Initiative that proposes to weaken public participation and environmental standards to bolster logging in the National Forests. Unfortunately, the initiative is only one of many administration proposals that would amount to complete rollback of environmental protections for the National Forests.

A compromise reached between Rep. McInnis and Democrats unraveled prior to the committee’s deliberations. That deal was also strongly opposed by environmentalists because it would weaken environmental laws and allow intensive logging under the guise of fire prevention. Unfortunately, Reps. McInnis, DeFazio and Miller have continued negotiations toward a bad forest deal. If a new agreement is reached the full House may consider the compromise when Congress returns after the election.

“Now that Bush is free to drive his agenda through Congress, Democrats shouldn’t just roll over and let him deliver our public forests to the logging industry on a silver platter,” said Andrew George, Campaign Coordinator for the National Forest Protection Alliance. “The proposal from the Bush Administration to ‘streamline’ environmental laws and exempt Forest Service projects from judicial review is a transparent attempt to increase commercial logging in our national forests -- which has been this administration’s stated intention since day one.”

Specifically, the McInnis legislation would:

• Gut the basic law governing environmental impacts. Under the bill, the current environmental review process under the National Environmental Policy Act — involving environmental analyses, an opportunity for the public to review and comment on agency decisions, and the ability of the public to appeal agency decisions — for all logging projects would be functionally eviscerated.
  
• Interfere with the judicial process. The legislation would limit judge’s review of logging projects unless the judges place these cases ahead of all other criminal and civil proceedings.
  
• Give a license to steal. The bill would authorize sweeping new authority for the government to provide timber corporations with 10-year stewardship contracts for doing work on federal lands in return for the right to log large, fire resistant trees.
  
• Offer no real protection for communities. The country’s top forest scientists and the Forest Service’s own scientists have found that reducing brush and fine fuels immediately adjacent to homes and communities affords real fire protection. The McInnis bill would expedite logging projects on all public lands, including in forests far from communities, old growth forests, National Parks, and designated wilderness.

In the East, groups highlighted a 4,000 acre commercial logging project called the Poplar Bluff/Fredrickton “fuel reduction” treatment in the Mark Twain National Forests as a harbinger of the “Healthy Forest” logging plan. Using the potential for wildfires as a pretext for logging, the US Forest Service (USFS) exempted the entire project from required environmental laws because they said the normal process was “too slow.” The agency’s shoddy environmental analysis determined that the logging would have “no effect” on twelve federally listed or proposed protected species in the area, including bald eagles, mussels, Indiana bats, and the Hine’s emerald dragonfly.

The groups also pointed to the USFS’s planned Hurricane Creek timber sale, which would log 384 acres of trees and spray herbicides on 149 acres in the crown-jewel of the Southern Appalachians: the Pisgah National Forest. This commercial logging project demonstrates that the agency continues to bend environmental laws — even without additional roll-backs of logging regulations — in order to “get the cut out.” This site is rich in biological diversity, harboring a number of rare and sensitive species, bear habitat, creeks, and streams. It is also a favorite location for recreationalists, including hikers, hunters, and bikers.

Bob Gale, Ecologist with the Western North Carolina Alliance, stated, “Unfortunately, science and common sense have been lost in a smokescreen intended to promote the building of unneeded and unwanted roads into America’s few remaining healthy forests so they can be logged into yet more fire-prone areas. Also, it’s important to understand that western US fire ecology is significantly different from the natural pattern of low intensity and limited fire occurrence in the moist Southern Appalachian forests. We shouldn’t be using a bad western policy as a boilerplate for fire mismanagement in our Southeastern forests.”

“The Forest Service is playing a dangerous shell game with the public and fire. Instead of taking responsibility for a century of mismanagement, the Forest Service is pointing fingers at environmentalists, and complaining that their hands are tied. In fact, fire is a natural part of western forests, and our efforts should be focused at protecting the areas around homes, rather than logging old growth forests far from human residences,” said Marty Bergoffen, campaign coordinator with the Southern Appalachian Biodiversity Project (SABP).

Norman L. Christensen Jr., professor of ecology in the Nicholas School of the Environment and Earth Sciences at Duke University, says there is no question that active suppression of fires has resulted in excessive accumulation of highly flammable fuels in many western forests, but he warns against action that will increase logging indiscriminately. “Our fire management policies and protocols should be tailored to the particular conditions in each region. Whatever policies are employed, it is critical that land management agencies provide assurances that their primary goal will be restoration of more normal fire regimes and not a backdoor mechanism to increase the cut of merchantable timber on public lands.”

In a letter written to President Bush dated Sept. 9, Christensen and ten of the nation’s preeminent fire researchers and ecologists cautioned the president about oversimplifying the complicated forest fire issue with inappropriate logging and road building which may exacerbate catastrophic fires. For a copy of the letter, email Dr. Christensen at norm@duke.edu.

Source: National Forest Protection Alliance/Southern Appalachian Biodiversity Project/Western North Carolina Alliance

ENVIRONMENT BRIEFS

Bombing factories effects environment

A new report by the Institute for Energy and Environmental Research, warns that precision bombing of industrial facilities, such as those in a1999 NATO air campaign in Yugoslavia, can lead to contamination that is very difficult to clean up and may violate international humanitarian law. The report also calls into question potential future targets, such as those in Iraq. The institute expressed hope that legal, health, and environmental issues raised by the study will be applied to other armed conflicts.

The bombing of Yugoslavian industrial facilities released such toxins into the environment as mercury, dichloroethane, and PCBs. Civilians living near the targets may be exposed to greater health risks from contamination of the air, water, and food products, said the report. (Environmental News Network)

Citigroup under
fire for lack of
environmental
standards

There were about 40 actions across the country on Nov. 6 against Citigroup (Citi), to protest the severe environmental destruction caused by the financial giant’s unethical lending practices. Citi uses its customers’ money to fund the most environmentally destructive logging, mining, and fossil fuel projects in the world. The national day of action was organized by Rainforest Action Network, students with Free the Planet, and the clean energy group PowerShift!.

Students at New York University held a demonstration at Citi’s headquarters and asked the university’s president to end Citi’s preferred lender status on campus until Citi cleans up its environmental practices. Other actions included demonstrations outside Citibank branches and letter-writing campaigns and call-ins to Citi executives. (Rainforest Action Network)

Food ‘eco-labels’ hard to decipher

As more products display labels proclaiming themselves “earth smart” and “environmentally friendly” environmentalists and consumer advocates say it’s crucial to find ways to weed out dubious claims. Many eco-labels are earned after third party certification, but others are not. Besides environmental claims, some goods boast “social responsibility” labels, which focus on labor issues and farmer’s rights.

The US Department of Agriculture (USDA) recently set organic standards and now has an official organic seal promising consumers that a product is at least 95 percent organic. Environmental and consumer groups give the USDA certification high marks, and say that since people are increasingly using their purchasing power to buy products such as fair trade coffee and sweat-shop free clothing, it is imperative that all labeling be accurate and science based. (IPS)

Anti-logging hunger strike in sixth week

As of Nov. 11, Susan Moloney, Executive Director of the Campaign for Old Growth, is on day 36 of a hunger strike on the steps of the California State Capitol. She will not eat until California Governor Davis declares an immediate moratorium on the cutting of old-growth trees. In March 1998, Davis promised that “all old-growth trees are spared from the lumberjack’s axe,” as a campaign pledge. Despite this promise, the slaughter of old-growth trees continues and has even accelerated. Kent Stromsmoe of the Forestry Monitoring Project said: “No one should have to starve to get the Governor to do his job or keep his campaign promises.” (Forestry Monitoring Project)