FYI. A very good Des Moines Register editorial on our national forests. And
a great opportunity for you to write a letter to the editor on the subject..

Lyle



Editorials

Hey, they're our forests, too
By REGISTER EDITORIAL BOARD

July 19, 2004
------------------------------------------------------------------------

In an effort to protect the most remote areas of our dwindling national
forests, the Clinton administration put sections of them off-limits to the
road construction necessary for logging. The Bush administration wants to
overturn the rule and give management of the forests to the governors of
states where the forests are located.
Under the proposed new rule, a governor who wanted to protect a forest would
have to petition the federal government, and a governor who dares to suggest
that parts of the forest be protected could be overruled by Washington
bureaucrats.

"This proposal embraces the fact that local people are the best stewards of
our forests," said Congressman Richard Pombo of California, in a press
release from the House Committee on Resources, which he chairs. "Forest
management decisions should be made at the state level."
Wait a minute. These are national forests, meaning their ownership rests
just as firmly with Iowans as with the loggers of Idaho and Washington. They
are not the personal property of timber-state governors and their logger
patrons, anymore than the gold in Fort Knox is the personal property of the
state of Kentucky.

The management of our national forests is a story of decades of disgrace, in
which taxpayers are billed for the considerable cost of roads and recoup
only a tiny fraction of that cost by selling the trees. In the past 20
years, this subsidy to the tree cutters has exceeded $700 million. This
proposal means taxpayers will be billed for additional subsidies to finance
further logging at a time when the timber market is already flooded.
Stripping trees from the mountainsides promotes erosion that destroys the
once-sparkling streams, denies habitat to wildlife and wrecks the
recreational value of land that soothes the souls of hunters, hikers and
campers. Their right to determine the use of the forest is every bit as
valid as the loggers' - more so, in that recreational value endures, while
the loggers turn a quick buck and then turn their backs on the devastation
left behind.

Since the time of Theodore Roosevelt, government protection of America's
natural resources has been viewed as a sacred trust. The foundations of that
trust are being steadily dismantled.


___________________________________________________

Lyle R. Krewson
Sierra Club Conservation Organizer
6403 Aurora Avenue #3
Des Moines, IA 50322-2862

515/276-8947
515/238-7113 - cel

[log in to unmask]
___________________________________________________

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
To get off the IOWA-TOPICS list, send any message to:
[log in to unmask]