Stop Bush's logging plan!

[Guest guest]

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*WildAlert

*Friday, August 30, 2002

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Dear WildAlert r,

 

In last week's WildAlert, we described President Bush's wrongheaded

wildfire plan. Some of the plan's worst elements require

Congressional approval. The Senate is expected to vote on the plan,

probably as an amendment to the Interior Appropriations bill, next

week. The President's plan is the single greatest threat to our

forests since the Salvage Rider of 1995, which waived environmental

laws and opened up thousands of acres of untouched wildlands to

unrestricted logging.

 

We want to be sure that when our Senators return to work on Tuesday

they see a pile of faxes from people who oppose this new plan to open

our forests to logging. Please send a fax today and ask your friends

and family to send one too! You can take action now from:

http://www.wilderness.org/takeaction/?step=2 & item=1827

 

If you'd like to send your own fax directly, click here to get your

Senators' fax numbers: http://tws.ctsg.com/wac/legDirectory

 

And if you'd like to call (not until Tuesday, September 3, please),

you can reach your Senators' D.C. offices at 202-224-3121.

 

 

BACKGROUND

It's just a week since the President announced his reaction to the

fierce wildfire season that has swept the West. His plan essentially

proposes to eliminate forest fires by eliminating our forests, and

making sure that caring citizens don't get in the way by participating

in forest management decisions. The President's plan would:

 

-Severely limit or end citizens' ability to appeal and litigate poor

management decisions on fuels treatment and so-called " restoration "

projects;

 

-Focus thinning efforts in remote, often roadless areas, far from the

community protection zone where people and their property meet the

forest;

 

-Set up *stewardship* contracting provisions that will let the Forest

Service and timber companies take large, healthy trees that are

resistant to fires to help pay for removal of hazardous fuels; and,

 

-Undermine the Northwest Forest Plan (which protects some of America's

last, best ancient forests) by increasing logging in the Pacific

Northwest and slamming the door on citizen participation.

 

This plan is a windfall for the timber industry, but nothing in it

will ease fire danger for woodland communities, property, residents

and firefighters.

 

For more information on the President's plan, visit:

http://www.wilderness.org/newsroom/

 

 

THERE'S A BETTER PLAN AND CONSERVATIONISTS HAVE LAID IT OUT

Dozens of national and grassroots organizations last Thursday

announced a plan that will actually work. It notes that the best fire

experts believe the maximum effective fuel reduction area is around 60

meters from structures, extending out up to 500 meters for firefighter

safety. And that's where we should focus our efforts. The

conservationists' plan calls on the Congress to:

 

-Make community protection from fire risk the top priority of the

National Fire Plan;

 

-Fund the priority at the rate of $2 billion a year for at least five

years.

 

The plan also proposes that 90 percent of fuel reduction funding

should be spent where it's needed: immediately next to homes and

communities. Today, the Bureau of Land Management and the Forest

Service spend less than 40 percent of their fuel reduction budgets in

these critical zones.

 

 

THE FIGHT SHIFTS TO THE SENATE

When the Senate reconvenes next week, we expect an amendment to the

Interior Appropriations bill, with likely sponsors to include Sens.

Pete Domenici (R-NM) and Larry Craig (R-ID). The legislation will

probably track the President's plan fairly closely and will seek

exemptions from environmental laws to speed thinning projects

masquerading as fire prevention.

 

 

TAKE ACTION NOW!

http://www.wilderness.org/takeaction/?step=2 & item=1827

Please fax your senators today. Urge them to:

 

-Ensure that community protection is the priority and to support

creation of a five-year plan, funded at $2 billion per year, with 90

percent aimed directly at fireproofing homes and reducing fuel nearest

them.

 

-Oppose any effort to weaken or suspend environmental laws that

guarantee our right to be involved in decisions affecting our forests.

Legitimate fuel reduction efforts have nothing to fear from citizen

involvement; spurious ones, such as cutting healthy trees in remote

forests under the guise of fire safety, cannot survive public

scrutiny, thus the call to shut us out of the process.

 

-Oppose any stewardship proposal that would allow logging of big,

fire-resistant trees to pay for fuel reduction.

 

-Oppose logging of ancient and wild forests.

 

We will have more information on this fast-breaking issue next week.

Thanks for taking action and for urging your friends to get involved,

too!

 

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**The stakes are high. Once the wild places and the wild things that

live there are gone, we Americans will lose our sense of uniqueness;

we will have no place to go to test our knowledge of ourselves as

individuals; and we will watch our genius for discovery atrophy.

Wilderness is as American as apple pie-- food for our soul. We need

all of it that is left, for without it we will surely starve.**

--Karen Shepherd

 

 

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For a full list of Action Items, visit

http://www.wilderness.org/whatcan/takeaction.htm