And now:Ish <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:
Wild Rockies InfoNet <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
At 09:29 AM 12/18/98 -0700, you wrote:
>Group's Suit Demands Ban on Logging in U.S. Forest
>
>By JOHN H. CUSHMAN Jr.
>
>WASHINGTON -- A coalition of environmentalists plans to sue the
Forest Service
>on Thursday, demanding an end to logging in national forests on
grounds that
>the federal timber program causes more economic harm than good.
>
>The environmental groups, led by Friends of the Earth and Forest
Guardians,
>assert that the Forest Service routinely ignores laws and regulations
that
>require it to calculate the economic costs of logging, such as damage
to water
>resources or tourism, and to weigh them against the benefits, such as
the
>value of the timber that is sold.
>
>In one sense, the lawsuit upends the typical dispute between business
groups
>who say that environmental regulations cost more than they are worth,
and
>environmentalists who usually argue that the benefits of strict
environmental
>rules cannot be expressed in dollars. For years, the
environmentalists have
>been fighting attempts in Congress to require cost-benefit tests. Now
they are
>in court seeking exactly that.
>
>The lawsuit has been joined by recreation, hunting and fishing
organizations,
>owners of small forest lots, tourism enterprises and others who say
they have
>been harmed economically by the logging program.
>
>It is supported by some prominent natural resource economists who
contend that
>is is possible to measure the worth of forests that are not logged --
and
>indeed that these values probably far exceed the worth of the timber
they hold
>and the jobs that are created by logging.
>
>The suit is to be filed in federal district court for Vermont, in
Burlington,
>said Brian Dunkiel, a staff lawyer for Friends of the Earth. It
follows a
>year-long campaign in which the environmentalists filed
administrative appeals
>with the Forest Service challenging hundreds of individual timber
sales by the
>service, including in the Green Mountains National Forest in Vermont,
on
>similar grounds, only to be rebuffed repeatedly.
>
>"The law requires the Forest Service to account for net economic
and social
>values," Dunkiel said. "It is almost as though the Congress
had hired the
>Forest Service to serve as the public's accountant, to manage these
assets.
>What has become clear is that the Forest Service has failed
terribly."
>
>James Lyons, the undersecretary of agriculture for natural resources,
said he
>had not seen the complaint and could not address its specifics.
>
>"As an organization we are certainly moving in a direction that
takes into
>account all the resources," Lyons said. "We are seeking to
improve, if not
>maximize, net public benefits. Our analysis is not focused solely on
timber
>production.
>
>"It's not what we take out of the woods, it's what we leave
behind that really
>matters."
>
>The coalition's lawsuit relies on a new but increasingly influential
theory
>among ecologists that it is possible to put a monetary price on the
public
>benefits that flow from healthy ecosystems, such as providing habitat
for
>commercial species, protecting drinking water reserves, providing
recreation
>and helping control global warming.
>
>It comes at a time when the federal timber program, in which the
Forest
>Service auctions off its trees to commercial companies, is under
challenge on
>many fronts. The Clinton administration is considering sweeping new
forest
>policies aimed at protecting the last pristine stands of trees in
roadless
>areas, and anti-logging forces have proposed legislation in Congress
that
>would restrict logging and road construction in tens of millions of
acres in
>national forests.
>
>But some conservationists have complained that the administration's
approach
>exempts major forests from protection, and the legislation has
virtually no
>chance of being enacted because pro-logging lawmakers control
committees in
>the House and Senate that have jurisdiction over forests.
>
>Instead, the plaintiffs in the suit are seeking to force the Forest
Service to
>stop logging until it obeys what they say are the requirements of
existing
>laws and rules.
>
>In documents prepared for the lawsuit, John Talberth, the executive
director
>of Forest Guardians, presents the results of a broad review he
conducted of
>the professional literature describing what he called generally
accepted
>standards for measuring the values of forests and the costs of
logging them.
>
>He also presents results of a survey of hundreds of timber sale
documents
>obtained from the Forest Service, which he said demonstrated that the
agency
>"has failed to incorporate significant information about the
socio-economic
>values of unlogged national forests into timber sale program
decisions."
>
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