THE long-running row over how best to manage America鈥檚 forests just got more heated. Environmentalists and the California attorney-general have filed lawsuits countering a federal plan for the management of forest fires. They say the plan is a sop to logging companies and will damage forest ecology.
The US Forest Service鈥檚 fire-management plan unveiled last year would quadruple the amount of commercial logging in forests covering 4.5 million hectares of federal land in the Sierra Nevada mountains. That is around 6 per cent of the total federal forested land. It proposes to sell contracts to cut big, commercially valuable trees and use the cash this generates to clear brush that presents the greatest fire hazard.
Last week, Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER), based in Washington DC, filed a motion to intervene in an existing lawsuit in the US District Court in DC over logging quotas on the land. The lawsuit was brought by two timber industry associations, who complain that even the new plan is too restrictive. Karen Schambach, PEER鈥檚 California director, says her group is worried that the Forest Service is not committed to defending the lawsuit.
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She claims the industry bodies filed the lawsuit because 鈥渢hey are hoping to come to some cosy little agreement with the Forest Service鈥�. PEER wants to be formally recognised as an 鈥渋ntervening party鈥� so that it can present arguments in the case.
On 1 February, the California attorney-general filed a lawsuit at the District Court for the Eastern District of California claiming that the new management plan was driven by politics, not science. A coalition of environmental groups filed a similar suit a day earlier.
At issue is the best way to manage the government-owned forests. For decades, aggressive firefighting prevented the small fires that would have burnt undergrowth and small trees without damaging mature trees. Now the forests are so full of fuel that there is a constant danger of catastrophic forest fires that kill even large trees.
Under the Clinton administration, logging was reduced to protect the habitat of endangered species. Small trees and brush were cleared by setting small fires and also by cutting them up and hauling them away. The new plan will use fewer fires and more mechanical thinning, which is more expensive. To offset the costs, the Forest Service will cut 943,000 cubic metres of large trees every year. The new plan is supposed to reduce the area affected by forest fires by 22 per cent over 50 years.
Critics say the changes were made with little scientific study, and they conflict with previous research. Cutting big trees, which tend to be fire-resistant, might even increase the likelihood of forest fires, they argue.
鈥淭he science is clear where the priority should be, in cutting small, flammable fuel,鈥� says Norman Christensen, an ecologist at Duke University, North Carolina, who specialises in forest management. 鈥淭he proposed plan is not consistent with those scientific priorities.鈥�
Schambach and others claim the Bush administration decided that more logging was needed before even looking at the science. They point to the appointment of Mark Rey, a former timber industry lobbyist, as under secretary for natural resources and environment.
Matt Mathes, a Forest Service spokesman, says that trees would be chosen carefully to avoid damaging the environment. He also denied that there has been any political interference in developing the new policy. 鈥淭he Clinton administration got very involved in the process. But nobody in the Bush administration ever told us what to do.鈥�
