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Green Groups Slam Tree Cutting

September 10, 2001 / 3:15 PM EDT / AP

More than 100 environmental groups opposed to commercial logging are urging Congress this week to end the estimated billion-dollar federal support for tree cutting on National Forest land.

The health of some national forests is jeopardized by clear cutting, oil and gas exploration, mining projects, grazing leases, road building and federal-private land exchanges, says the 121-member National Forest Protection Alliance.

"The timber sale program is increasingly being disguised behind forest health initiatives, restoration justifications, post-fire salvage operations and this is a trend we've seen throughout the 1990s," Tom Weis, the coalition's executive director, said Monday.

The group says the problems, while national in scope, particularly threaten the health of the Allegheny National Forest in Pennsylvania; Ouachita in Arkansas and Oklahoma; Black Hills in South Dakota and Wyoming; Tongass in Alaska and Umpqua in Oregon. Other national forests the group points to are the Clearwater in Idaho; George Washington and Jefferson in Virginia; Ottawa in Michigan; Gifford Pinchot in Washington and Plumas, Lassen and Tahoe in California.

The group plans to take its case to Capitol Hill on Tuesday joined by Reps. Cynthia McKinney, D-Ga., and Jim Leach, R-Iowa, and forest activist Julia "Butterfly" Hill, who lived in a tree for more than two years to protest the logging of old-growth redwoods in California.

"At first blush, some might think ending logging on federal land is environmental extremism, but in fact it is common sense," said Leach, co-sponsor with McKinney of a bill to end commercial logging on federal public lands that was first introduced in the House four years ago.

The group's report says the government subsidizes the Forest Service's logging programs at a cost of more than $1.2 billion annually, based on figures supplied by the Pasadena, Calif.-based John Muir Project and verified by Congressional Research Service.

Forest Service spokeswoman Heidi Valetkevitch noted that opposing commercial logging on federal public lands runs counter to the agency's mandate by Congress to use forests for multiple uses, including recreation.

"The head of the agency strongly supports multiple use for our national forests," she said Monday. "Thinning and timber-harvesting tools are vital to the health of the forests ecosystems."

Michael Klein, spokesman for the American Forest & Paper Association, called opposition to the federal logging program misguided.

"Our national forests are facing the worst health crisis since their creation," Klein said Monday. "The timber sale program is one method of treating those at-risk acres."

The environmental coalition disputes that such practices contribute to forests' health.

Monday also marked the deadline for public comment on the Clinton-era ban the Bush administration is reconsidering that affects road building and commercial logging on a third of the nation's foest lands.

Environmental groups were gathering Monday in Salt Lake City to deliver 500,000 comments to the Forest Service office responsible for collecting and evaluating public comments on the rule.

The forests coalition said the administration's decision will have a profound effect on what happens in the Tongass, Umpqua, Clearwater, George Washington and Jefferson and Gifford Pinchot national forests, which still contain large roadless areas with significant stands of old-growth forests.

Former president Clinton approved the road building ban covering 58.5 million acres of national forests just before leaving office. Timber, oil and mining interests, and some recreation groups, also say the rule could harm forests by keeping out firefighters and hampering the ability to conduct scientific research that help keep the trees healthy.

The Bush administration said there had been not enough public comment on the issue and reopened the debate in July by asking for input about managing roadless areas.