Posted on 12/29/2001 12:13:05 AM PST by sokit2mebb
Logging Ban Backed for Sierra Nevada By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS ACRAMENTO, Dec. 27 (AP) — The Bush adminstration said today that it would put into effect a Clinton- era plan offering greater protection to old-growth woodlands in 11.5 million acres of national forests in the Sierra Nevada. The news cheered environmentalists and disappointed loggers and others who hoped the Republican administration would throw out the management plan for 11 national forests in California and Nevada. The ruling, by Mark Rey, under secretary of agriculture, upheld last month's Forest Service decision to reject appeals by loggers, ski resorts and off-road groups. The Agriculture Department oversees the Forest Service. The plan took the Forest Service nine years and $12 million to creafte, and began in 1992 as an effort to protect the endangered spotted owl. "It is the Forest Service's best effort to date to lay out a blueprint to manage the forests of the Sierra Nevada," Mr. Rey, a former timber lobbyist, said. The plan adds safeguards for endangered species and bans logging of most trees larger than 20 inches in diameter.
Before the election I joked about "Twiddle dumb (Gore) and Twiddle G (GW)...ends up it was NO joke
That's ok, it's good because Bush is an (R) but if Clinton did it, it would be bad because Clinton is a (D)....
So don't complain about those crooked walls in your new house.....
Thursday December 27 9:00 PM ET
Sierra Nevada Protection Upheld
By JIM WASSERMAN, Associated Press Writer
SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) - The Bush administration said Thursday it will implement a Clinton-era plan offering greater protection to old-growth woodlands in 11.5 million acres of national forests in the Sierra Nevada.
The news cheered environmentalists and disappointed loggers and others who hoped the Republican administration would throw out the management plan for 11 national forests in California and Nevada.
The ruling by Agriculture Under Secretary Mark Rey upheld last month's Forest Service decision to reject appeals by loggers, ski resorts and off-road groups. The Agriculture Department oversees the Forest Service.
The plan took the Forest Service nine years and $12 million to craft, and began in 1992 as an effort to protect the endangered spotted owl.
``It is the Forest Service's best effort to date to lay out a blueprint to manage the forests of the Sierra Nevada,'' said Rey, a former timber lobbyist.
The plan adds safeguards for endangered species and bans logging of most trees larger than 20 inches in diameter. Environmentalists said logging will be limited to levels one-tenth those during the Reagan administration in the 1980s.
California Forestry Association President David Bischel called Rey's ruling the ``worst decision they could have made'' and one that will ``add to the risk of catastrophic wildfire.''
He said forestry groups may eventually take their case to court.
Bob Roberts, director of California Snow, a group of Sierra Nevada ski resorts, also expressed displeasure. Ski resorts won't be able to add new lifts if they can't remove trees larger than 20 inches in diameter, he said.
``Recreations has been a casualty of the process,'' Roberts said.
Forest Service officials said they intend to revise the plan to better prevent destructive wildfires that frequently rage in the nation's longest unbroken mountain range. Some of the revisions incorporate points made by plan opponents, they said.
Environmentalists said they fear that might be a backdoor way to accomplish more logging. They, too, promised to sue if that happens.
But spokesmen for environmental organizations had mostly praise for Rey's decision.
``Today the sun is shining on California's Range of Light,'' said Jay Watson, regional director the Wilderness Society, borrowing 19th century conservationist John Muir's description of the mountain range
They sure did. Thanks for posting the entire article.
Our own government has bureaucrats who have spent a huge amount of time in the forest studying this Spotted Owl creature. They concluded that in 1492 when Columbus landed that there 6,000 Spotted Owls in what is now the US. In 1900 there were 4,000 Spotted Owls. In 1980 there were 4,100. By 1990 it was 4,150.
Our bureaucrats have observed that when the loggers come to an area these birds fly away and find another home and that these birds are not harmed at all by the logging operations. That was the actual conclusion of the bureaucrats looking into it. They tried for years to find evidence that these birds were harmed and could not find any.
King George is merely engaging in the popular bigotries of our time to throw rural white people out of work simply because some rich urban environmentalist wants to. Due to the decision made in 1989 lots of jobs were lost, towns were killed, the price of lumber tripled and not one single bird benefited. That King George won't reverse his father's decision indicates that we should not vote for him.
That was a court decision I believe, by the notorious liberal Ninth circuit in San Francisco.
I feel pretty bad for individual loggers and small lumber outfits but, the simple facts are that the large companies, like LP and Simpson, cut themselves into a corner by mismanaging what they had.
Exporting raw logs should have been made illegal.
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