Upset over dead trees

Loggers, environmentalists
lock horns on 'salvage logging'

February 22, 1996
Web posted at: 8:15 p.m. EST (0100 GMT)

From Correspondent David Mattingly

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- From conservationists to corporate loggers to furniture-makers, everyone is talking trees in Washington this week. But it's dead and dying trees that are drawing much of the attention at the American Forest Congress, the seventh in a century-long series of conferences on managing U.S. forests.

The dispute over "salvage logging" (519K QuickTime movie) grew more heated in 1995 when President Clinton signed a measure, passed by the new Republican Congress, temporarily allowing the U.S. Forest Service to override existing environmental laws by declaring a forest health emergency.

Fears of abuse

Until then, salvage logging had gone on for years without much controversy. It was common for diseased, fire-prone or insect-ridden trees to be removed before they presented a threat to healthy trees. But environmentalists fear loggers will go too far, using the change to cut so-called "green," or healthy timber. The result could be the loss of wildlife habitat and the decline of water quality, said Jim Jontz of the Western Ancient Forest Campaign. (179K AIFF sound or 179K WAV sound)

Henson Moore of the American Forest and Paper Association takes the loggers' view. "The most important thing in this legislation is forest health. Most Americans believe that our forests should not be diseased, and should not be allowed to burn to the ground."

Much Western salvage logging is taking place in areas that were off-limits in the past due to environmental challenges. Critics of unbridled salvage logging claim the process can cause mud slides in national forests.

Leaked memo

The ammunition against salvage logging includes a leaked memo from a U.S. Forest Service manager. In part, it reads: "... we were told that virtually every sale should include 'salvage' in the name. ... Even if a sale is totally green, as long as one board comes off that would qualify as salvage ... It should be called salvage. It's a political thing."

But the timber industry counters it needs the new rules to open up forests and forest jobs, bypassing the lengthy appeals process environmentalists use to challenge timber sales. "The lawsuits are choking society in general and they're doing the same thing in the area of logging," Moore said.

The emergency rider runs out at the end of 1996. But there are competing bills in Congress that could either abolish the new rules or make them permanent. At the American Forest Congress in Washington, hopes are high that despite the uproar over salvage logging rules, 1996 will bring a new era of cooperation on timber issues.

Related Sites

Feedback

Send us your comments - Selected responses are posted daily.