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Bush Should Reverse Course and Protect Federal Forests
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21, 2004

The Bush Administration’s reckless logging agenda is the most serious threat to our nation’s forests ever. We urge him to change course.

WASHINGTON, D.C.—On Earth Day conservationists urged President Bush to announce an end to old growth logging and support for protecting the nation’s remaining wild forest heritage.

"This is the worst environmental President in history," said Andrew George, Campaign Coordinator for the National Forest Protection Alliance. "We hope the public will remember this Earth Day that the Bush Administration’s reckless logging agenda is the most serious threat to our nation’s forests ever.

Conservationists point to numerous new agency policies and changes in environmental rules that have opened the door for more logging including:

• Easing rules protecting wildlife and clean water to allow for more old growth logging in the Pacific Northwest.
• Removing protection for the Tongass National Forest that will allow new logging and roadbuilding projects in old growth forests.
• Cutting funds for community fire protection programs while increasing subsidies for logging.
• Announcing plans to write new forest planning rules that weaken wildlife protections and undermine public participation. 
• Announcing plans to rewrite the hugely popular roadless area conservation rule.

"The public needs to know that their National Forests are now at risk from some very subtle attacks that weaken environmental standards and public involvement," said Gene Karpinski, executive director of U.S. Public Interest Research Group. "The timber industry is the sole beneficiary of the administration’s forest policies, and as a result, it has started to plunder and exploit the National Forests."

These new policies are affecting the National Forests in Mississippi and the people’s right to public participation, said Davis Mounger, forestry chair for Sierra Club in Mississippi and a representative of Friends of Mississippi Public Lands.

"For example, the DeSoto district is now releasing timber sales that don’t even allow the public to comment on the sale before it has already made a decision," Mounger said. "The only way for citizens to comment then is to appeal the sale. Whatever one’s opinion, it is in everyone’s interest to preserve their right to participate."

For a complete list of administration policies that threaten forests, please see http://www.forestadvocate.org/pdf/Thousand_Cuts.pdf

For additional information please see www.forestadvocate.org, http://www.wilderness.org, http://www.defenders.org, http://www.sierraclub.org, and http://www.americanlands.org.