🚀 go-pugleaf

LOGGING WITHOUT LAWS BULLETIN #54 from WAFC, the
Western Ancient Forest Campaign.  Call (202)789-2844x291 or email
WAFCDC@igc.apc.org
 
Thursday, March 21, 1996, the 240th Day of Lawless Logging
 
THOUSAND YEAR OLD TREES TO FALL?:  A boring taken
yesterday reveals that at least one tree in a unit of a timber sale
which Roseburg Forest Products is ready to cut on the Umpqua NF
is almost 1000 years old, a spokesman for Umpqua Watersheds says. 
Citizens on site in the forest report that RFP has a watchman at one
of the units of the First and Last sales which the company is
expected to cut perhaps yet this week.  An alert from Cascadia
Forest Defenders says "environmental activists are currently moving
into the area in a last-ditch attempt to prevent the logging."  The
First and Last sales, withdrawn in 1990 because of environmental
impacts, will total 299 acres of clearcuts in unlogged roadless areas,
late successional reserves, and key watersheds. The areas are critical
habitat for winter steelhead, coho salmon and cutthroat trout.  The
sales were released for cutting March 8th after a ruling by Judge
Michael Hogan.
 
REPEAL RIDER NOW:  A sign on letter being circulated among
citizens groups will urge President Clinton to make repeal of the
rider a condition of his signature on the Omnibus Appropriations
bill which will soon be on his desk.  Citing the clear statement in
Clinton's letter to Sen. Patty Murray last week of unconditional
support for repeal of the rider, the appeal to Clinton says that the
Omnibus spending bill "is a proper vehicle" for repeal of the rider. 
"This nation's legacy of Ancient and old growth forests is being
liquidated each day that our environmental laws are suspended,"
the letter to Clinton says.  "Please take action now: insist that the
Congress restore our laws and protect our forests and waters by
repealing the rider as part of the Omnibus Appropriations Bill." 
 
SALVAGE CRISIS?:  A ten fold expansion in the salvage program
on our national forests from 1989 through 1995 "was achieved
without restrictions on citizen appeals" says Robert Wolf in a paper
entitled "Is There A Salvage Crisis?"  Wolf reports that use of the
Salvage Fund "ballooned starting in 1989" growing from $18 million
in 1987 to $144 million in 1989.  The salvage program from 1989 to
1995 totalled 15.4% of the 53 BBF total National Forest cut for those
seven years.  Wolf estimates that the portion of the total cut which
was salvage was 18.5% in 1992, 19.9% in 1993, l9.4% in 1994, and
20.2% in 1995.
 
MINNESOTA SALES:  A proposed salvage sale of 1905 acres in the
Superior NF in Minnesota has been proposed for treating "spruce
budworm infested balsam fir stands," according to the FS. A letter
from the Tofte district ranger says that "history tells us that if these
stands are left untreated the majority of the currently existing
balsam trees will be dead within the next several years."  Ray
Fenner of the Superior Wilderness Action Network says the sales
will "gut" the 1905 acres and calls the use of the timber rider to
avoid environmental laws "an abuse of our public forests."  Call
Fenner at (612)646-6277 for more information. 
 
BARKLEY BACK:  An announcement by the Lassen NF that they
plan to offer the Barkley Sale under the timber rider has prompted
a letter from the Quincy Library Group to Regional Forester Lynn
Sprague asking him to rescind the Lassen's decision.  Last month,
Assistant Secretary of Agriculture Jim Lyons told activists in
Washington D.C. that the sale would be halted.  "The lesson we
learn from Barkley is that fire will never be allowed to play its
ecological role on FS land," says the QLG's Linda Blum.