Redirect timber-sale losses
April 9, 2004
To the Editor: I applaud the suggestion that the future of public land management doesn't lie in decimating our remaining old-growth forests. Oregonians clearly value national forests for wildlife, clean drinking water and recreation over unsustainable timber extraction -- a message unheeded by managers of Mount Hood National Forest who continue to plan ancient-forest logging projects en masse.
In light of your support for preserving old growth, veritable bastions of biodiversity, your dismissal of pre-logging surveys for rare species is baffling. The Forest Service has contributed to the near-extinction of countless species through reckless management practices -- thus the judicially mandated requirement to look before logging.
Too high a price to pay to leave a legacy of ecological diversity for our children? Here's a solution: End the commercial timber-sale program altogether and redirect the billion-dollar-a-year loss to taxpayers toward community-based jobs restoring our forests and rivers. That's what the Northwest really needs.
SANDI SCHEINBERG
Executive director, Bark