Copyright 2000 The Baltimore Sun Company
THE
BALTIMORE SUN
June 1, 2000, Thursday ,FINAL
SECTION: EDITORIAL ,20A
LENGTH: 343 words
HEADLINE:
Managing our national forests
Roadless areas: Balancing
public interests, Clinton plan would wisely protect valuable natural resources.
BODY:
BOTH MANAGED and wild areas have their place
in our National Forest System, a public treasure embracing 192 million acres and
156 separate units.
Over half of that vast acreage has been logged and
developed for public use; less than a fifth is set aside as preserved
wilderness.
Now the nation is asked to decide how to shape the future of
the remaining quarter of this priceless patrimony. In the boldest conservation
step of his tenure, President Clinton proposes to ban road building on these
lands, largely protecting them from extensive logging and intensive use.
That is a worthy goal for the greatest public good.
The sweeping
executive order, which would bypass Congress, is about roadless areas and not
about wilderness. It would leave many decisions about multiple uses to local
forest management plans, a sound idea.
But it would halt the costly,
wasteful, destructive juggernaut of road building in our untrammeled forests
that nurture critical natural ecosystems.
"Of all the things that we do
on national forests, road building leaves the most lasting imprint on the
landscape," says Michael Dombeck, chief of the U.S. Forest Service.
It
also leaves a heavy burden on the taxpayers. There's a legacy of 380,000 miles
of (mostly logging) roads built in the National Forest System, with an
insuperable $10 billion maintenance backlog.
The
greatest impact would be on the timber industry. But only 5 percent of the
national timber harvest is from national forests; one-twentieth of that total is
on areas affected by the roadless proposal. Logging wouldn't be banned in
roadless stretches, but would be economically prohibitive there.
The
greatest flaw in the plan is exclusion of the Tongass National Forest in Alaska,
whose roads policy will be decided in 2004. Political considerations, and
respect for the Alaskan national lands law, dictated this decision. But that can
be changed, and should be in the Forest Service's final plan, given the heavy
public subsidy for logging in that crown jewel of system.
LOAD-DATE: June 2, 2000
