Enviros seek to help defend planning rule from industry challenge

[lobsterdmb]

FOREST SERVICE: Enviros seek to help defend planning rule from industry challenge

Scott Streater, E&E reporter
Greenwire: Tuesday, September 11, 2012

Environmental groups want to help the Forest Service defend itself against a federal lawsuit filed last month by a coalition of logging, ranching and off-highway vehicle (OHV) groups challenging the agency's new planning rule for the nation's 193 million acres of national forests and grasslands.

The Western Environmental Law Center filed a motion late yesterday in U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia on behalf of two Oregon-based conservation groups seeking to formally intervene in the lawsuit on behalf of the Forest Service.
A coalition of more than a dozen industry groups claims in its August complaint that the Forest Service overstepped its authority by requiring that new forest management plans provide "ecological sustainability" and "ecosystem services" and use best available science in decisionmaking, among other charges (Greenwire, Aug. 14).
The industry groups -- including the American Forest Resource Council, National Cattlemen's Beef Association and BlueRibbon Coalition, an OHV users group -- essentially state that the new planning rule ignores the congressional mandate to provide for multiple uses such as logging, ranching and motorized recreation.

The Forest Service has said the new planning rule, which is required by the National Forest Management Act, seeks to carefully balance the interests of all stakeholder groups.

But the conservation groups Klamath-Siskiyou Wildlands Center and Oregon Wild argue that the industry lawsuit threatens that balance and could have broad implications for the agency's ability to manage forests nationwide.

"This lawsuit, if successful, could effectively ban conservation biology as a basis to help craft how we manage our national forests," said Pete Frost, a Eugene, Ore.-based attorney for the Western Environmental Law Center who is representing the two groups.

The industry lawsuit also reveals the plaintiffs' true belief that national forestlands should be managed primarily for resource extraction, said Joseph Vaile, program director for the Ashland, Ore.-based Klamath-Siskiyou Wildlands Center.

"These industry groups have a scary vision for our national forests," Vaile said. "Never before have we seen extraction industries so clearly state that they oppose the use of science on our national forests. Through this suit, these groups hope the keys to our national forests are handed over to private industry so they can be turned into private tree farms for their own benefit."

The Forest Service rule was finalized in March after more than two and a half years of public meetings and more than 300,000 public comments. Previous attempts to update the rule in 2000, 2005 and 2008 drew lawsuits from the Center for Biological Diversity and other environmental groups and were either enjoined or abandoned, leaving the Reagan administration's 1982 planning rule in place.

The Obama administration rule, which emphasizes watershed restoration, drew praise from major environmental and sportsmen's groups, including former Forest Service Chief Dale Bosworth and Sen. Jeff Bingaman (D-N.M.) (E&ENews PM, March 23).
"It comes as no surprise that the timber industry would like to see our national forests managed for logging," said Doug Heiken, Oregon Wild's conservation and restoration coordinator, "but it becomes truly bizarre when the timber industry must argue against science and in favor of crony capitalism in order to achieve their desired result."

 

[ocean_jet]

interesting article talks about evolution in the Forest Service away from its multiple use mandate to an agency of preservationism...



It hurts to see the forest’s current state
Former KNF supervisor struggles with what he sees as lack of management

Posted: Tuesday, September 18, 2012 5:15 pm
Alan Lewis Gerstenecker

Jim Rathbun has spent his life in the forests. To say he loves the woodlands is like saying Michael Phelps is a good swimmer.

Rathbun, 78, was Kootenai National Forest Supervisor for six years, from 1983 to ’90.

Rathbun began his career with the U.S. Forest Service in 1957 as a smoke jumper. Along the way, he got a forestry degree from the University of Idaho and worked his way to the top, until his retirement on Dec. 30, 1989.

“I retired because I couldn’t take it anymore,” Rathbun said. “That was 23 years ago. It just hurts to see the forest’s current state.”

Rathbun, who now spends much of his time fishing, said the Forest Service is not really managing the woodlands anymore, and that’s a source of consternation for him.

“The (KNF) has a potential of growing 400 million board feet a year. We’re harvesting about 20 million (board feet), if that. How long do you think that can go on before we have a problem?” Rathbun said. “We’re seeing it now. We’ve got timber lying all over the forests. Those are assets that should be logged, and we’re not..

“We’re not managing the forests anymore,” Rathbun said. “We’re just letting them grow.”

Asserting the preservationists’ thinking about what is wrong with seemingly never-ending mountains of greenscape, and Rathbun said that would be fine if that’s what’s left. However, Rathbun said, that’s not what now exists.

“Go east of here, the forests are not green, they’re gray. Gray or red. They preservationists say they want old-growth timber, but that’s what happens when it’s not managed. You get mountainsides of gray, dead timber,” Rathbun said.

“Forests need to be managed: You monitor, you assess, cut and then you plant. We’re just not doing that anymore.”

During the interview, it became apparent, Rathbun felt a great sense of relief in saying these things, getting items off his chest.

He said he saw the forest philosophy changing in the waning years of his career, and he blames it on the preservationists.

“The Service used to be a multiple-use agency, but it’s not that anymore. It really came to a head when Al Gore was elected vice president,” Rathbun said. “We saw a wildlife biologist put in charge of the Service. He didn’t know forestry. He knew biology. He was a preservationist.

“Preservationists liked to make us prove this or that. They always like to ask you a question you can’t answer,” Rathbun said. “We managed forests, period.”

Rathbun said preservationists ultimately changed the Forest Service.
“There was an unwillingness of the Forest Service to stand up to preservationists and the (presidential) administration, too,” Rathbun said. “That led to changes in the whole philosophy.”

Rathbun does not blame those current employees of the Forest Service.
“They’re doing their job,” he said. “They’re doing what they think is right. It’s not their fault, it’s the agency’s fault. If you ask me, the Forest Service is a failed agency.”

Asked whether he thought his comments may be construed as those of an anti-government activist, Rathbun quickly downplayed the notion.

“I’m not an activist,” he said, responding quickly. “I’m a source for activists — a source for those people who want to be activists.”

So, why come out now, Rathbun was asked, long after he walked away from government service.

“I’m worried about Libby and the forests,” he said. “We are in serious danger of fires right near town. There is so much (deadfall) in the woods that we couldn’t fight a fire here.”

Rathbun is concerned, too, about budget cuts that are limiting road access to the back-country, greatly limiting the Service’s ability to get to remote areas to fight fires.

“We’re creating a fire hazard here. Back in the day, if we had a fire, Initial Response was so critical. Everyone in the office would drop what they’re doing and fight the fire,” Rathbun said. “The Forest Service doesn’t have the numbers (people) to do that kind of Initial Response.”

He also said years ago there was great cooperation in fighting fires. “The loggers had (bull)dozers that we could count on in the event of a fire. We could get five dozers to a fire in no time. Nowadays, I wonder whether there are five dozers in the county,” he said referring to the lessening of the timber industry.

“Yes, I’m concerned. I’m concerned for my family and neighbors,” said Rathbun who has been married to his wife, Julie, for 54 years.
The Rathbuns have five children and nine grandchildren.

Upon the conclusion of the interview, Rathbun was asked to sit for a photograph, which he declined.

“Oh, I don’t need a photo taken,” he said. “People know what I look like. Besides, this is not about me. It’s about the forests.”

Editor’s footnote: Current KNF Supervisor Paul Bradford was asked to comment on Rathbun’s assertions, which Bradford declined.


http://www.thewesternnews.com/news/...01d7-11e2-88f7-0019bb2963f4.html#.UFnyODV7BFQ

 

[emptypockets86]

Good article, thanks for sharing!

 

[SonicCougar99]

As a resident of a small town of 3,000 people completely surrounded by a National Forest, I agree with the above article 110%.