Menstuff® has compiled the following information on the
Administration's plans to do away with our national forests as we
know them.
White House Announces Gigantic Timber
Sale in Montana
Why shouldn't dead trees be logged before they rot? Massive logging projects ruin pristine roadless areas and interfere with the natural recovery of the forest. Burnt trees ordinarily provide animal habitat and their root systems prevent erosion. Removing the trees could cause nearby streams to be engulfed with mud and imperil nearly extinct fish.
Bill Clinton placed one-third of the national forests - 58.5 million acres - off-limits to logging, mining and the construction of new roads, while leaving the lands open for recreation. Now, Forest Service regulators are issuing a blizzard of revisions that weaken the rule. For example, Bush appointees recently decided not to protect the 8 million acres of untouched land with Alaska's Tongass National Frost, the nation's largest old-growth forest. They also granted local forest officials the authority to open wild regions to industry development.
Reacting to these moves, Carl Pope, executive director of the Sierra Club says, "On Veterans Day, the Bush administration said the American people should go to the parks and wilderness areas to find peace and solitude, so they lifted the entrance feeds for that weekend." What Bush forget to say is that you'd better go now because, under his policies, we won't have anything but picture post cards to look at before long.
Source: Rolling
Stone Magazine, 1/31/02 
Where to Write. See other Issues and Books on Ecology
 |
|
 |
