POINT: Logging in the National Forests — ruining the environment.
In the wake of the 9/11 attacks, America is united as never before, but the ugly side of American political opportunism has also emerged. Jerry Falwell famously attributed the attacks to homosexuals. Defense contractors flooded the defense budget with expensive and irrelevant weaponry (unless Al-Queda’s next move is an East-Coast ground invasion.)
With similar cynicism, many western politicians have seized upon this year’s wildfires to demonize environmentalists. Politicians who have spent their careers ridiculing the worth of other creatures now spout rhetoric of “forest health” and “sustaining our forests.” Our own Rep. Jim Hansen leads this team, and they aren’t about to let facts or science interfere.
At issue is the assertion that forests can be made less fire-prone through certain alterations. However, the General Accounting Office (GAO), the non-partisan research arm of Congress, has found the Forest Service has emphasized traditional logging projects with no fire reduction effect, and that often increase fire hazard.
The essential conflict is between removing the big trees wanted by timber companies, and removing the small trees and shrubs, which reduces fire hazard. Because politicians can’t have it both ways, they have been deliberately confusing the two concepts to promote logging under the label of fuels reduction.
For years, the Forest Service’s own data has shown traditional logging increases fire risk. This occurs for several reasons, including the residual logging debris called “slash,” the reduction in average tree diameter, and increased surface temperature.
Politicians have completely ignored the fact that the most catastrophic fires are occurring in heavily logged forests.
The Apache-Sitgraves National Forest, in particular, has been Arizona’s pyro-epicenter, yet is one of the country’s most heavily logged forests. So pervasive has logging and roadbuilding been in the Western United States, if these activities reduced fire hazard, the entire region would be fireproof by now. Unfortunately, facts are irrelevant to politicians seizing upon tragedy.
The House Resources Committee is already hard at work recycling a “report” ordered by former timber lobbyist and current undersecretary for Natural Resources Mark Rey. A recent press release from the committee, led by minister of misinformation Jim Hansen, reads, “USDA reports nearly half of 2002 projects to reduce wildfire risks have been blocked by appeals – usually by environmentalists.” (Hansen took the liberty of substituting the word “blocked” for “delayed.”)
Unfortunately, the five-page “report” counts any logging project described as “fuels reduction,” even though science, including studies by the GAO, the Forest Service, and national fire staff indicate otherwise. It doesn’t even name any projects for obvious public relations reasons. Any college student who presented such a shabby report would be drummed from class, but for the Bush administration, it follows a familiar pattern: When facts don’t support your agenda, order a “revised study” written by political aides.
To protect our communities and restore fire-adapted ecosystems, we must stop imposing predetermined political agendas on the western landscape, which has existed for millions of years before European settlers first wielded saws or plows. We can target fuel-reduction money for true fuel-reduction projects in the immediate vicinity of homes at risk.
We can help homeowners avoid creating powder kegs through common-sense landscaping and design measures. We can use solid, unbiased science (not written by politicians) rather than inventing after-the-fact rationales to cover massive, counterproductive logging. We might also better protect our other western ecosystems and species nearly extinct due to logging, urban sprawl, water overconsumption, grazing, and off-road vehicles. To the beings, human and otherwise, at stake in the West, political grandstanding is no service at all.
Jim Steitz is a senior majoring in environmental studies. Comments can be sent to him at sl8mh@cc.usu.edu.