NEWS: Forest Lands Opened to Logging

It will be up to the Governors of the states affected to submit petitions within eighteen months if they want to have a say about new rules issued by the USFS that cover some 58 million acres of pristine forest in 38 states. These same forest lands were set aside for protection by then President Clinton shortly before he left office in 2001. The issue has been mired in federal court since then, and the outcome of the regulations remains in doubt.



Add this to the debate over Arctic drilling, and we have a big battle over environment and natural resource use looming on the horizon. Balancing the needs of local communities, environmental factors, and the corporate bottom line becomes increasingly difficult as the resource base shrinks, and effects on populations from environmental damage grows. Somewhere in the forest, a tree is falling, and pretty soon, everybody is going to hear it going down.

Somewhere in the forest, a tree is falling, and pretty soon, everybody is going to hear it going down.

This is an important issue. Environmental groups simply don't have the strength necessary to fight corporations and even small town industry. The world is seeing the rapid depletion of natural resources, sure, but just as importantly, we are seeing the rapid depletion of nature itself.

Zip

I have the believe that we humans will be the ones to decimate our own species in this earth, while we deplete our resources, we will die out in great numbers due to the wars that will come from the desperation to control whatever is left.

At the end we will lose and earth will regenerate as usual, we will not be as lucky.

If money is more powerful than our environment let them make their money, I hope that it will pay for air chambers when the environment will stop supporting us.

I will embrace my fate with open arms and move on to better places beyond this earth.

I hope they get away with whatever they want, for money.

Oh marg, spare me...

The responsible husbandry of forests through controlled logging creates a healthier system than just ignoring it and letting brush build up to be consumed in massive, uncontrollable fires. I think it's a good plan.

I will embrace my fate with open arms and move on to better places beyond this earth.

There is nowhere better than earth. Earth rules. Be happy you've tasted maple syrup and strawberries and walked on a beach coz THAT'S EARTH, BABY.

Zip

zip says;
This is an important issue. Environmental groups simply don't have the strength necessary to fight corporations and even small town industry. The world is seeing the rapid depletion of natural resources, sure, but just as importantly, we are seeing the rapid depletion of nature itself.

That is what environmental groups want you to think.

Fact forests are no longer clear cut they are selectively cut.
Fact for every tree cut down more trees are planted to take their place.

Fact natural forces was the reason some creatures went extenct, man had nothing to do with that. Example dinosaurs.

Fact mines can no longer be opened until plans and bonds to reclaim the land after the mine is worked out are in escrow.

I love all the lies the greeni weines tell ya, but they always leave out the real truth

Originally posted by djohnsto77
Oh marg, spare me...

The responsible husbandry of forests through controlled logging creates a healthier system than just ignoring it and letting brush build up to be consumed in massive, uncontrollable fires. I think it's a good plan.

Good point DJ I notice there is never any mention that the greenies put ceramics in trees in an attempt to halt some trees being taken down which have injured humans as a result.

Can we say terrorists???????

This is important.

These lands were set aside for conservation for a reason.

I live in washington state and I have seen my share of environmental radicals. I have seen communites wiped out because of endangered species.

I also have seen some of the most beautiful forests in the world on the olympic peninsula, most of which is protected land.

www.fs.fed.us...


I think that while there may be good reasons to do this, where does it stop?

We cannot continue to give up fedaraly protected land. Once the small parks are gone it's only a matter of time before we start selling off peices of Yellowstone.

As to the fire danger issue.

I have heard that argument before and it doesn't add up to me.

How did forests survive without our intervention before?

Are you saying that nature can't maintain forests left alone?

It just doesn't make sense to me.

Fires occurred all the time in a natural system and usually were contained to small areas, clearing out the underbrush but occasionally did spread far and wide and caused massive damage that recovered only over centuries.

Originally posted by djohnsto77
Oh marg, spare me...

The responsible husbandry of forests through controlled logging creates a healthier system than just ignoring it and letting brush build up to be consumed in massive, uncontrollable fires. I think it's a good plan.

Forests have been around for a long time and had done just fine without us. It is ignorant to believe that forest fires destroy more trees than we do. It is also ignorant to believe that the forests need "human management" to thrive. The whole concept of us having to manage a natural system is rediculous.

We have to manage our natural resources and our environment and keep things in balance as best we can in order to survive as a species. I agree with dj, we need a good plan. I'm just not sure this is it. We can't have a James Watt 'when the last tree falls, Jesus will come' attitude, nor can we afford to ruin the logging industry to save an owl that isn't really endangered to begin with, either. Any plan for national resource management has to take in this entire spectrum of concern and come up with a reasonable compromise that balances the pros and cons effectively. Its time there was a true bi-partisan effort behind this. It is not going to go away, it will only become more complicated and super-critical to take care of.

Originally posted by LeftBehind
This is important.

You can say that again!

The purpose of having certain land set aside as "Protected" is to protect it!

There is (was) plenty of other land available for commercial use. That is being swallowed up by our relentless suburban crawl, though!

Where I live, there was a time, not so long ago, when you could drive down the main highway at about 55mph for at least thirty minutes at a stretch surrounded by unbroken forest.....not so much as a fence in sight!

First came the deforestation, then the subdivisions....now....Starbacks and The Gup adorn the six-lane main drag that has grown from a two-lane backwoods highway.

It's constantly growing, too. People are abandoning the city in favor of a more peaceful existence, and bringing all of the conflict and destruction with them. They leave behind a desolate wasteland of run-down houses and closed up shops for the hopeless to inhabit.

Someday, there will be one big unbroken suburban area covering the planet like a web. Perhaps this is truly the impending doom that Benevolent Tyrant was asking about last night?

The question i have is:

Why did shrub-a-bub-dub find it necessary to release that land that was set aside for protection. The only reason to open it up is obvious...to sell off the natural resources to the highest foreign bidder...the Japanese love US lumber...and they have a large shortage, from what i have read, of timber over there...they have to import most of their wood...

If anyone here thinks that the "greenies", as you call them, are lying...think again...because the government is lying 3 fold back...

It won't matter who the government says has the say...governors of states can do so much....the final say is up to the FOREST SERVICE....and the forest service takes their orders directly from DC...some cronie decides to crawl in bed with some big logging corporation....there will be little that the forest service can do but to deney a governors application...it's the business end that will win...

the earth does have the ability to renew it's self...but as long as greedy human beings are around....what good is done will be undone....

~oracle

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This will produce virutally NO JOBs for the US.

These logs will be chopped down and shipped to China, India, Korea, etc. where they will be processed and provide JOBs for those countries and NOT the US.

Our land will be raped so Bush's and the Congresses Sugar Daddies can be satisfied.

Can you say Washington Prostitutes?

This isn't even good for the US economy. We are becoming a 3rd world resouce provider instead of an industrial product producer.

How far we have sunk.
.

dj
You have to realize the role fires play. Without fires, the soil would be rapidly depleted, and will be unable to sustain life eventually.

If we go in and remove the nurtrients and minerals and fiber in the system by taking away the trees as opposed to letting them burn, we disrupt the ability of their replacements to grow.

If I'm not mistaken, this policy is being driven by associates of the gentleman who so famously stated that he believes Jesus will return when the last tree falls.

Life is self sustaining, until animals come along and remove without putting back. All our houses stand for decades, and then get dumped into landfills or burned and disposed of outside the natural system. We're robbing the earth, not replacing the critical elements.

We put trees back, sure. But when they have nothing to nourish their growth..they die and don't grow back.

I understand the need to utilize lumber, and drive down the prices of building materials. (It's cheaper to build with steel frame nowadays rather than lumber, because of the rules, regulations, and taxes in place, not to mention the demand). But there are alternatives to lumber, good alternatives like steel, bio mass resin (plastic), and concrete.

Originally posted by shots
Fact forests are no longer clear cut they are selectively cut.
Fact for every tree cut down more trees are planted to take their place.

That's because of the actions of the 'greeni weines'.
Without environmentalists that wouldn't be happening.

You may dislike environmentalists but what they are doing is helping to benefit us all.

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Timber produced in the US used to mean jobs in lumber mills.
Now the raw logs are exported and turned into lumber in China, Japan, etc.

There has been a loss of almost 50,000 lumber and wood product jobs in the US since NAFTA went into effect in 1994.
www.epinet.org...

This means these timber sales just give a quick profit to a few big corporations and do NOTHING to stimulate the US economy.

I believe in free trade, but not government sponsered economic rape of American forests that belong to all of us, and not to Bush's rich friends.
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I don't quite see how this helps the US. As slank said it's all going to other countries which means it's only helping the guys at the top of the corporations. Those enviromental extremist groups are giving the enviroment a pretty bad name. From what I figure we'll be the first species on Earth to eradicate itself, and most likely 99% of all other life on Earth.

I made an ATSNN article on this back in December, or more specifically about the Bush Admin stifling opposition to the plan through the EPA:

www.abovetopsecret.com...

"No public expression of dissent is allowed in the federal government now," Jeff Ruch, executive director of Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility known as PEER, said.

An EPA staffer wrote that building roads through swaths of land previously untouched would deteriorate the qualify of water in streams and have an impact on public drinking water.

Ruch said that EPA employees related that Steven Shimborg, a political appointee at the EPA, dismissed the staff draft as a "rant" and ordered the objections stricken from the EPA comments.

[edit on 8-5-2005 by kegs]

This is a really vicious circle – we chop down the trees and decimate the environment. We chop down the trees and export to foreign shores such as China and Japan. So we have decimated our local environment and exported jobs. Now that is a deal worth fighting for..

The logs arrive in places like China where production is less than environmentally friendly and we end up with pollution problems which impact on the ozone layer and presto…

EVERYONE LOSES..makes a lot of sense. I think not.