60 Million Acres! Clinton Initiative Could
Protect Last Wild Forests
by Jenny Coyle
The Clinton administration's newly announced plan to
safeguard the nation's remaining roadless areas could preserve more
land than any proposal since the 1980 Alaska Lands Act, which
protected more than a million acres of parks, refuges and forests.
"We have a real reason to be optimistic and hopeful
that this will be one of the greatest conservation actions in
American history," said Jennifer Ferenstein, a national Sierra Club
Board member and Montana forest activist. "President Clinton is
saying he has the political will to do this, and if the public
weighs in strongly, he'll move ahead with it. It provides us with an
astounding opportunity."
Clinton directed the U.S. Forest Service to study
options to protect roadless areas of 5,000 acres or more. The agency
will also determine whether protection is warranted for smaller
roadless areas (most roadless areas east of the Mississippi are less
than 5,000 acres) and whether Alaska's Tongass National Forest
should be included. If the smaller roadless areas and the Tongass
are included, the total amount of land protected could be more than
60 million acres.
The Clinton administration has not fleshed out which
activities, besides roadbuilding, will be banned from designated
lands. "We haven't narrowed the scope of what we're looking for,"
said Cindy Chojnacky, public affairs officer on the Forest Service
roadless-area study team. "The purpose now is to see what people's
issues are."
The Sierra Club is clear about what it wants.
"We need to protect our national forests from logging
and other destructive activities," said Melanie Griffin, director of
the Sierra Club's Lands Protection Program. "This means no new road
construction, mining, oil and gas development or off-road vehicle
use. That's the message the Sierra Club has been conveying all
along, and apparently we're being heard. This proposal could
safeguard clean drinking water for rural communities, protect
habitat for grizzly bears and other wildlife and preserve
recreational activities."
Public input on this first step is being taken until
Dec. 20. Additional opportunities to make comments will come before
the study is finalized. The administration expects a recommendation
from the Forest Service in late fall 2000.
"This is a highly politicized issue being played out
in an election year," said Ferenstein, "but the process incorporates
so much public input and sound science that it will be difficult to
undo - even if an anti-environmental president lands in the White
House in 2000."
Announcing his plan from the George Washington and
Jefferson national forests in Virginia on Oct. 13, Clinton said the
proposal reflects the will of the American people, who want to see
more lands preserved.
"Only 5 percent of our country's timber comes from the
national forests," he said. "Less than 5 percent of the national
forests' timber is now being cut in roadless areas. We can easily
adjust our federal timber program to replace 5 percent of 5 percent,
but we can never replace what we might destroy if we don't protect
these 40 million acres."
The Forest Service more or less prepared for such a
proposal when, in March 1998, agency Chief Mike Dombeck announced a
moratorium on roadbuilding in most existing roadless areas. The Club
mobilized national grassroots support to broaden the moratorium,
including working with other groups to gather and deliver 200,000
postcards calling for permanent protection of these last wild
forests. Forest Service staff say the president's new proposal is
right in line with Dombeck's own vision for the land.
"The leadership of the Forest Service has been
advocating for quite a while now that these issues needed to be
looked into," Chris Wood, Dombeck's senior policy advisor in
Washington, D.C., told The Planet. "We've begun a public dialogue
but we haven't said we're going to protect 40 or 60 or 20 million
acres. Are we supportive of protecting part of it? Yes. Are we
prejudging the outcome? No."
"This is democracy at work," Wood added. "If you care
about forests and you care about conservation and making sure that
we're passing on a living and vibrant land legacy, you'll actively
engage in this process."
It's important, because timber industry lobbyists are
already at work trying to stop or weaken the plan, said the Club's
Griffin. And anti-environmental members of Congress have deemed it a
"flimflam game" - as Sen. Conrad Burns (R-Mont.) called it at a
Senate hearing - and are working to obstruct the process.
The House Resources Committee, under the chairmanship
of Don Young (R-Alaska), immediately ordered the White House and
U.S. Department of Agriculture to turn over all documents, phone
records, memos, e-mails, video and audio cassettes and anything else
that has to do with the issue.
"Harassment" is how a congressional staffer, who asked
to remain anonymous, described the committee's request.
But then, said Wood, "You'd have to have your eyes
closed and be rolled up in a ball for the past 20 years if you're
thinking this would not be a challenge."
Griffin said the Sierra Club will rise to the
challenge. As The Planet went to press, activists were testifying at
hearings about the proposal from Atlanta, Ga., to Missoula, Mont.,
and a massive postcard campaign is under way to send a loud, clear
message to the White House.
"We expect fierce attacks from Congress and the timber
industry, but we've beaten them back before," she said. "We'll be
working to build up a huge amount of support for the president's
policy in order to defend it when it's attacked."
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