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FOR
IMMEDIATE RELEASE
November 3, 2005
Contact:
Paul Hughes, executive director: (415) 974-4201; paul@forestsforever.org
Marc Lecard, communications manager: (415) 974-4202; marc@forestsforever.org
Dueling
forest recovery bills introduced in House
Logging and tree farms versus forest ecosystem
restoration
Two bills now in Congress take very different approaches to helping
forests recover from wildfire, windstorms or other natural disturbances.
Today, Rep. Greg Walden (R-OR) introduced the Forest Emergency Recovery
and Research Act in the House. This bill would exempt logging after
“natural disturbances” from the oversight and public
participation provisions of the National Environmental Policy Act
(NEPA). Not only concerned with wildfire, the bill is written so
that “disturbances” such as rainstorms and droughts
could trigger the logging exemptions.
In October, Rep. Tom Udall (D-NM) introduced an alternative forest
rehabilitation bill, the National Forests Rehabilitation and Recovery
Act (H.R. 3973). Udall’s measure would mandate a scientific
approach to post-disturbance forestry, setting up five pilot projects
to study the restoration of forests after natural disturbance. The
Udall bill explicitly excludes old-growth forest, wilderness and
roadless areas as sites for rehabilitation pilot studies, and allows
public input in the planning process. It also sets up a national
oversight committee of scientists to monitor the forest recovery
projects.
Walden’s bill, on the other hand, proposes logging, roadbuilding,
and tree planting as a necessary response to forest fire and other
disturbances. Yet logging after a fire is very destructive: soil
is compacted and root systems damaged by heavy equipment, stream
quality degraded by sediment runoff. Harvesting burned and dead
trees removes nutrients from the forest ecosystem. Overall, logging
delays forest recovery rather than enhances it.
“How did the forests restore themselves before Rep. Walden
came along?” said Paul Hughes, executive director of Forests
Forever. “Walden’s bill is not about forest restoration.
Rather, it is a revenue transfer– from taxpayers’ pockets
to the coffers of the timber industry.”
A hearing on the Walden bill will be held on Nov. 10. The bill may
also be considered by the House Resources Committee on the same
day, and could be sent from there to the House floor.
“Forests Forever supports the scientific approach of Udall’s
bill,” said Hughes. “At the same time, we condemn the
Walden bill and its singleminded focus on timber sales for private
profit.”
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