Criticism Delays U.S. Adoption of Sierra Forest Protection Plan

[realFedUp]

http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-sierra21nov21,1,3227383.story?coll=la-headlines-california

Criticism Delays U.S. Adoption of Sierra Forest Protection Plan
The proposal's stepped-up logging is not scientifically justified, scientists contend. The Forest Service pushes a decision back until January.

By Bettina Boxall
Times Staff Writer

November 21, 2003

Wide-ranging criticism of a proposal to roll back wildlife and forest protections in the Sierra Nevada has caused the U.S. Forest Service to delay adoption of the changes, which would alter an environmental management plan for the state's most prominent mountain range.

A number of experts, including Forest Service scientists, have faulted the proposal on a variety of counts, saying that the agency has failed to provide a sound scientific justification to weaken the protections.

In response, the Forest Service has postponed a final decision on the revisions — originally due this fall — until January.

"We're listening to everything people are telling us, and one of them is we need to do a better job of documenting the rationale for the decision," said Matt Mathes, the Forest Service's spokesman in California. "All this is information Regional Forester Jack Blackwell actively asked for and wants. He doesn't really consider any of this good news or bad news. It's just information he needs to make a decision."

In detailed and sometimes sharp comments submitted to the Forest Service in recent months, several scientists warned that Blackwell's call for stepped-up logging could harm declining wildlife species, possibly pushing them onto the endangered species list. They disputed Forest Service claims that the proposed rollbacks were justified by "new information" on Sierra ecosystems and wildlife. And they raised questions about the plan's fire-reduction strategy.

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[ellie]

1. This is more shuck and jive from Bushco

From the article:

"Soon after taking office, Bush administration officials launched a review of the regulations, saying that they were too restrictive and too cautious in tackling the wildfire threat. In June the Forest Service released a draft environmental document proposing more aggressive logging to thin the Sierra's 11 national forests, as well as the elimination of some grazing restrictions."

Fortunately some people inside the agency get it:
'"One of the myths of fuels treatments is that all you have to do is thin the trees," commented U.S. Geological Survey research scientist Jan van Wagtendonk. "Taken to its ridiculous extreme, one can prevent forest fires by cutting down all the forests."'

and
"A September review by the Washington, D.C., staff of the Forest Service's Watershed, Fish, Wildlife, Air and Rare Plants office said the Sierra proposal would heighten risks for wildlife.

"One can only conclude that standards in are a prescription for continued owl population declines," the wildlife office report."

The way around this is to gut the endangered species act, which I believe, they are doing. See, if the owl is no longer endangered, then we can cut down all of its habitat (trees). It makes sense if you have none!