Copyright 2000 P.G. Publishing Co.
Pittsburgh
Post-Gazette
November 30, 2000, Thursday, SOONER EDITION
SECTION: EDITORIAL, Pg. A-30
LENGTH: 552 words
HEADLINE:
ROAD TO PRESERVATION;
CLINTON PLAN WILL HELP PROTECT NATIONAL FORESTS
BODY:
President Clinton has crafted a
surprisingly impressive environmental legacy. But in terms of scope and
substance, his parting gift of a ban on logging in the roadless
areas of national forests may be his most important legacy.
The
192 million acres of national forests are already crisscrossed by 373,000 miles
of roads and an additional 60,000 miles of ghost roads that are no longer
maintained. In a bold and beneficial move, the Clinton administration plans to
limit future road building to areas that have already been affected, prohibiting
such activity in pristine tracts of more than 5,000 acres. The protection, which
does not need congressional approval, would extend to some 58.5 million acres of
national forest, almost exclusively in the West.
The plan was first
announced a year ago and has been through extensive review since then. Some 1.5
million comments were received, an extraordinary testament to the power of the
proposal and the concern for America's wilderness.
Because so many
argued for inclusion of the world's largest remaining old-growth temperate rain
forest, the vast Tongass National Forest in Alaska, the final version of the
plan announced last week now does that. In an unfortunate bow to the clout of
Alaska's congressional delegation, however, the protection for the Tongass would
not begin until 2004. There is no legitimate reason for that exception, which
should be corrected before the president implements the plan.
Roads,
paid for by taxpayers, have been built into the nation's forests to accommodate
logging operations, many of which would not be otherwise profitable. With the
exception of the 34 million acres of forests already designated as wilderness,
the most accessible and lucrative tracts of public woodlands have been logged.
The old-growth forests that remain in tracts of 5,000 acres or larger are
primarily remote and located on steep or difficult terrain that has made logging
economically unfeasible, even with taxpayer-subsidized road building.
It
is that very terrain and remoteness that make these tracts environmentally
fragile. Road building itself, not to mention logging, can cause erosion that
inflicts serious damage to streams and lakes and disrupts delicate ecological
balances that cannot be put right in the short term. The Forest Service
recognizes that of its many activities, "road building leaves the most lasting
imprint on the landscape."
Most of the nation's logging occurs on
hundreds of millions of acres of privately owned land. And more than half of the
national forest land remains open to logging. With careful stewardship of those
resources, it shouldn't be necessary to exploit every last square foot of
old-growth forest.
The Forest Service had long considered its primary
role to be facilitator for the timber industry. Under the evolving
environmentalist tendencies of the president and the Forest Service leadership
of Mike Dombeck, that mentality has been challenged. Now, at least, conservation
and recreation are also essential elements of the agency's mission.
As a
result, Americans are to be granted a gift of their own natural heritage, a
legacy as rich and wonderful as the nation's extraordinary history and economic
prowess. And it is a gift that generations to come will cherish.
LOAD-DATE: November 30, 2000 
