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]