Members of OSPIRG said a recent road management policy approved by the Clinton Adminstration is a step in the right direction to protect national forest land, but the policy still has some weaknesses.
The policy will protect forest land in Alaska’s Tongass National Forest, and members of OSPIRG, the Oregon student chapter of the national Public Interest Research Group, have been actively lobbying for the forest’s protection since the beginning of the school year.
The policy, intended to halt commercial logging and prohibit road construction on 49.2 million acres of timber, was approved Jan. 4 by Forest Service Chief Mike Dombeck. Since then, there have been conflicting reactions from OSPIRG members and logging company representatives.
The original plan, begun in January 1998, caused concern from PIRG because it did not effectively address road building in the national forests. OSPIRG members said the new policy is a success, but it still has a few loopholes.
“It is the largest wilderness protection act since the national parks were set aside in 1907,” OSPIRG campus organizer Jessica Smetana said.
OSPIRG, which handles issues involving the environment, public safety and health, has focused attention on educating students at the University about the National Heritage Forests Campaign through distributing information and showing movies.
“I hope people become more aware of the issue of the forest plan,” said Venus Killen, OSPIRG’s forest project coordinator for the National Heritage Forests Campaign. “[Students] might want to contribute to preserving the forests.”
U.S. PIRG member Tiernan Sittenfeld said the U.S. Forest Service received 1.5 million letters, faxes and e-mails from the public during the course of this summer’s nine-week public comment period regarding the original plan. Ninety-five percent of those comments supported full protection for roadless areas on national forest lands.
OSPIRG members joined the national mission when they flooded the White House switchboard in October to make the Clinton administration aware that PIRG members wanted full protection of all forests under the policy. They spent a day outside the EMU with cell phones and encouraged passing students to place a call to the switchboard.
Killen, a freshman environmental studies and sociology major, said her main criticism is that the Tongass National Forest won’t be fully protected until 2004.
“We would like [the policy] to include the Tongass right away and to define stewardship logging,” Killen said.
Sittenfeld said stewardship logging, the practice of cutting trees for forest health reasons, is responsible for two-thirds of the timber cut from the national forests.
The Boise Cascade Corporation, a lumber company in Idaho, owns more than 2 million acres of timberland that supports its manufacturing operations. Boise Cascade Spokesman Mike Moser said the policy will limit the company’s amount of timber harvesting.
“The U.S. Forest Service were rule-making a process that was predetermined,” Moser said. “It was implemented too fast and without proper analysis, and it was totally one-sided.”
Moser said the U.S. Forest Service ignored requests that more time be spent investigating and more information be gathered about the policy before it was approved. While the policy doesn’t allow road building, Moser said roads already exist in roadless areas. He also said evidence shows forests are not healthy but are overgrown.
“More aggressive management and thinning is necessary to prevent devastating forest fires — like the fire this summer — and this plan won’t allow this to happen,” Moser said.
Boise Cascade, coalition partners and other Northwestern lumber companies believe the Clinton Administration has gone beyond its authority. Moser said the administration is taking actions that should be made by the U.S. Congress.
The final record of Clinton’s decision is expected later this month.