New rules will Broaden firefighting, Logging in U.S. forests

Associated Press ^ | May 31, 2003 | Robert Gehrke

[wallcrawlr]

...finally.

[widowithfoursons]

"loot public forests and pocket the proceeds." This sounds suspiciously like capitalism. TOO MUCH CONSUMIN GOIN ON OUT DERE!

[Free the USA]

http://www.freerepublic.com/perl/bump-list

[farmfriend]

rights/farms/environment ping.

On or off, let me know.

[E.G.C.]

BTTT!!!!!

[kstewskis]

pinging!

[blackie]

Logging is appropriate!

[EverOnward]

would love to be on your ping list -- my son an Army National Guardsman was recently trained to fight the fires this summer....

[EverOnward]

woops. I pinged the wrong person. Yes, please put me on your ping list. Many Thanks.

[farmfriend]

Most happy to.

[countrydummy]

haha. I guess it is better to let the forests burn to the ground and all of the trees die, than an industry make some money and employee some folks! Geez these greenies are complete idiots!

[countrydummy]

ping

[The Red Zone]

And it wants to end consultations over whether such actions would affect endangered species.

Hey libbielefters! Whatcherbeef??? Dontcha believe in Darwin???

[Focault's Pendulum]

Under the new policy, the Forest Service and Interior Department would not need an environmental study before cutting or burning excess trees on as many as 190 million acres of federal land considered to be at-risk for a catastrophic wildfire

As a former firefighter who lost 5 fellow brothers some twenty years ago, in a woods fire.....about time.

You don't know fear until you see a crown fire approaching you.

[goldstategop]

None of this is a surprise. The enviro wackos care more for trees than they do for people. And if it suits their purposes, the trees be damned.

[uglybiker]

Hey libbielefters! Whatcherbeef??? Dontcha believe in Darwin???

Only when there's money to be made.

[cajun-jack]

but..but..but..black churches and green forrests will burn!! dman republicans!!!!!!!!!!!

[JudyB1938]

Off, please. Thank you.

[editor-surveyor]

"but..but..but..black churches and green forrests will burn!!"

More likely their Green Churches will become Black Forests :o)

[risk]

I guess it is better to let the forests burn to the ground and all of the trees die, than an industry make some money and employee some folks!

I'm sure there's some element of fear that President Bush's commitment to protecting the environment aren't strong enough. But as he said recently about winning the war in Iraq, when he says he's going to do something, people are finding out he says what he means and does what he says.

Anyway, this act looks quite reasonable to me. It doesn't change the rules that require environmental impact studies before logging in the monuments and national parks, so it just encourages thinning where we've already had a lot of human activity. Again, I might have reservations about how to monitor the increased logging activity, but the fire hazzards we've seen must be addressed. (And anyway, on BLM and non-monument/parkland, why shouldn't we be more aggressive about human-intervention in the tree growth cycle?)

The Bush team seems to be on top of things by including the pre-positioning of firefighting crews this summer. That's also impressive.

President Bush Ron Wenker of the Medford Bureau of Land Management Properties District touring the Squires Peak Fire Area in Medford, Oregon. Source: Whitehouse page on the Healthy Forests initiative

The exemptions requiring impact studies for logging and preemptive burns of under 1,000 acres will only be for areas outside the parks. Also, endangered species impact would be eliminated. Given that species come and go all the time, this sounds reasonable, as well. As a conservationist, I used to see the species angle as a good way to protect the forests. But in practice, it has opened up a floodgate of lawsuit ideas and redtape for the econuts to exploit.