Eco-lobby, land users pan Sierra forest plan
By Eric Brazil
OF THE EXAMINER STAFF

)2000 San Francisco Examiner

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/examiner/hotnews/stories/03/plan4sierra.dtl

[Fair Use: For Educational/Research Purposes Only]

Public hearings next for draft proposal  to restore ecosystems in mountain range

The U.S. Forest Service's just-released and long-awaited conservation management plan for the Sierra Nevada is being met with dismay and anger all around.

Eight years in the making and the work product of 70 public meetings, the draft environmental impact statement lays out seven alternatives for restoring the ecological health of the mountains that John Muir called "The Range of Light."

But no sooner had the 1,000-page tome been released than environmentalists and the timber and farming industries started tearing it apart.

The alternatives favored by the Forest Service are "a timid approach to enormously complex problems created by over half a century of mismanagement," said Warren Alford of the Sierra Club.

"This agency is taking baby steps when it should be taking great leaps forward," said Paul Spitler, executive director of the California Wilderness Coalition.

From an opposite perspective, Christopher Nance, executive director of the California Forestry Association, said the Forest Service statement was an attack on rural Californians by the urban majority and a usurpation of legislative prerogatives by the Clinton Administration.

"It's going to be a nightmare," said Bruce Blodgett of the California Farm Bureau Federation. "This is nothing more than discrimination against people who live in rural communities."

The Forest Service's master plan for the 11 national forests in California encompasses nearly 11 million acres. It addresses basic problems with old forest, riparian and meadow ecosystems and fire and fuel management, and endeavors to minimize the impact of logging on the range's flora and fauna.

The draft plan will now be subject to public comment at hearings throughout the state for 90 days. A decision on its implementation is expected by the end of the year.

"Our analysis indicates the final decision will require some well-reasoned tradeoffs between (removal of dead timber to reduce the risk of fire) and wildlife habitat protection," said Kent Connaughton, manager of the Forest Service's Sierra Nevada project.

The two alternatives favored by the Forest Service are under fire from environmental organizations on the grounds they offer insufficient protection for endangered species and permit too much logging. Neither, in the view of the Sierra Nevada Forest Protection Campaign, addresses the effect of high-intensity logging on wildlife and water quality.

One of the Forest Service's two preferred alternatives "doesn't even preserve the status quo," said Scott Hoffman Black, director of the Sierra Nevada Forest Protection Campaign. The alternative would actually increase the allowable timber cut from the 337 million board feet reported in 1998 to 351 million, Black said.

Most environmentalists favor an alternative formulated by the California Wilderness Coalition that would reduce the timber cut to 125 million acre-feet a year. The Sierra Club is against all logging on public land.

Wilderness Society regional director Jay Watson faulted the Forest Service for pussyfooting in its recommendations. "Delaying the inevitable point when no more ancient forests are logged will not provide sustainable benefits to the regional economy," he said. "Nor will it reduce forest fire risks, since old-growth forests are the healthiest, most fire resistant stands in the Sierra."

Nance said that the Forest Service's treatment of the risk of catastrophic fire was a prescription for disaster in that it relied entirely on prescribed burns and not enough on clearing out dead timber.

"There's too much wood in the woods," he said. "The fuel loads are increasing at exponential rates due to the hands-off management policies in our national forests. Three times more trees are dying as are being harvested."

The Farm Bureau's Blodgett criticized the Forest Service plan for unfair treatment of the cattle industry. California cattlemen will lose 100,000 animal units per month out of the present 400,000 if either of the two preferred alternatives are implemented, he said.

The notion that ecotourism will somehow compensate economically for the loss of timber and ranching jobs is a false one, Blodgett said.

Black retorted that "there are 915 jobs directly tied to public lands logging" in the Sierra Nevada, but "over 20,000 jobs are tied to tourism and recreation. So when you really look at it, these trees are much more valuable standing up than they are lying down."

)2000 San Francisco Examiner

-- Anonymous, May 04, 2000

Answers

USDA Forest Service
The mission is to achieve quality land management under the sustainable multiple-use management concept to meet the diverse needs of the people.

http://www.fs.fed.us/

[Note: Think this may be what the above article referred to.]

Draft USDA Forest Service Strategic Plan
(2000 Revision)

http:// www2.srs.fs.fed.us/strategicplan/

View the Plan on-line and have the opportunity to submit comments on each section

http://www2.srs.fs.fed.us/strategicplan/toc_view_plan.asp

-- Anonymous, May 04, 2000

Forest Service to Release Sierra Logging Options for Review
Glen Martin, Chronicle Staff Writer
Wednesday, May 3, 2000
)2000 San Francisco Chronicle

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/ article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2000/05/03/MN83636.DTL

[Fair Use: For Educational/Research Purposes Only]

The U.S. Forest Service will release several possible plans for logging on the 11 national forests in the Sierra Nevada this week, and all of them are sure to engender intense controversy.

Both environmental and commercial forestry groups have already expressed dissatisfaction with the proposals.

The long-awaited draft environmental impact statement for the forests of California's primary mountain range will explore eight different options for regulating logging, ranging from maintaining cuts at current levels to dramatically reducing them to protect endangered species such as the California spotted owl and the Pacific fisher, a large weasel-like predator. Both creatures favor old-growth forests.

The Forest Service has designated two of the options as ``preferred alternatives.'' One would authorize cutting 351 million board feet of timber annually for the next five years, up from the most recent available figures, 337 million board feet that were logged in 1998.

The second preferred alternative would reduce the annual cut significantly, to 141 million board feet.

The average home utilizes 10,000 to 15,000 board feet of lumber.

The current Forest Service plan calls for cutting 571 million board feet annually, but that target has not been reached because a controversial pilot logging project -- known as the Quincy Library Group Plan for the Plumas National Forest, the Lassen National Forest and part of the Tahoe National Forest -- has not yet been fully implemented.

After five years -- when the Quincy Library Group Plan has expired -- the first alternative would authorize the annual logging of 190 million board feet, while the second would allow 72 million board feet.

Current plans call for the yearly cutting of 414 million board feet for 2005 and beyond.

Environmentalists quickly condemned the preferred alternatives, particularly the one that called for the larger cut.

``This is a big disappointment,'' said Scott Hoffman Black, the campaign director of the Sierra Nevada Forest Protection Campaign, a coalition of 80 environmental, science and religious organizations favoring rigorous logging controls in the Sierra.

``They're about to embark on a course that represents a step backward,'' said Black. ``We believe it will hasten the decline of Sierra wildlife.''

Warren Alford, a spokesman for the Sierra Club, said logging in the Sierra's national forests causes irreparable environmental damage and is particularly devastating to species that depend on old-growth timber for survival.

``The California spotted owl is declining at 7 to 10 percent a year, and other species such as fisher, pine marten, red-legged frog and yellow- legged frog are also threatened,'' Alford said. ``With the Quincy project, the current plan would take 571 million board feet a year. It's impossible to sustain those levels without harming critical habitats.''

Alford said the Sierra forests are ``a sinking boat. The (preferred alternative that would allow the most cutting) is a timid effort to bail water and not plug the boat. The (second preferred alternative) still results in a leaky ship, but at least it patches some holes.''

Chris Nance, the vice president of public affairs for the California Forestry Association, is also unhappy with the forest service's proposals -- but for opposite reasons.

He thinks more, not fewer, trees should be cut.

``None of the options address the threat of catastrophic wildfire in the Sierra forests,'' Nance said. ``The preferred alternative (with the higher figures) would reduce the threat of wildfire only by 10 percent over a 30 year period. The second would actually increase wildfire danger. There is 2 billion board feet of growth in the 11 Sierra forests each year. Three times as many trees are dying as are harvested. We need to employ timber harvesting and prescribed fires to sustain forest health.''

Alford agreed with Nance that using controlled fire would reduce litter and brush, kill destructive insects and generally improve the health of the forests, but said logging causes more problems than it solves.

``A congressionally mandated study conducted by the University of California at Davis concluded that logging has led to an increase in wildfire severity, because tree removal increases brush and slash (dead branches and trees),'' Alford said.

``The alternative (with the lower cut) is more cautious in its approach, but we have to think about what the forests will ultimately look like in 50 years,'' said the Forest Service's Brad Powell, who oversees national forestlands in California, part of Nevada and U.S. islands in the Pacific Ocean.

``We used the latest science on species management for these scenarios,'' said Powell. ``The final solution will be crafted from the best of all the alternatives. ''

Powell said one thing is certain: Commercial logging and thinning `'will be a key ingredient'' in managing the forests of the Sierra Nevada.

)2000 San Francisco Chronicle

-- Anonymous, May 04, 2000