🚀 go-pugleaf

On Jan 27, 12:40 pm, SMITH29 <smit...@comcast.net> wrote:
> habe...@lycos.com wrote:
> > On Jan 27, 1:51 am, jazzerci...@hotmail.com (-) wrote:
> >>http://www.ens-newswire.com/ens/jan2008/2008-01-25-095.asp
>
> >> Bush Opens Roadless Tongass National Forest to Logging
>
> >> JUNEAU, Alaska, January 25, 2008 (ENS) - Today, the Bush administration put a
> >> "for sale" sign on trees in pristine roadless areas of the Tongass rainforest
> >> in Alaska - America's largest national forest.
>
> >> This move by Bush officials to reverse roadless area protections parallels two
> >> others made recently in national forests located in Idaho and Colorado.
>
> >> Conservationists from across the country are indignant that roads will be
> >> punched through some of the nation's last, best roadless areas to allow
> >> private corporations to log America's public lands.
>
> >> "The few remaining roadless areas of our national forests are some of the only
> >> safe harbors for America's wildlife," said Mary Beth Beetham at Defenders of
> >> Wildlife. "As global warming threatens to dramatically change the landscape we
> >> must have the foresight to preserve these last remaining pristine forests for
> >> future generations. It's folly for the Bush administration, in its last few
> >> months, to work to destroy these areas."
>
> >> In December 2003, Bush officials "temporarily" exempted Alaska's Tongass
> >> rainforest from the Clinton era Roadless Rule, designed to protect 58 million
> >> acres of roadless wild forests in 39 states.
>
> >> The Bush administration's new management plan for the Tongass National Forest
> >> will raise no revenue for the U.S. government, as the U.S. taxpayers will have
> >> to pay to build the roads the timber companies need to access the forest.
>
> >> "With so much of our forest heritage already lost, every roadless acre counts.
> >> The spectacular roadless areas in Alaska deserve as much protection as those
> >> in every other state," said Larry Edwards with Greenpeace in Sitka, Alaska.
>
> >> "The Roadless Rule and the courts have sheltered many of the last, best places
> >> in our national forests, even during an administration hostile to forest
> >> protection. Now, with one foot out the door, Bush officials are looking for
> >> whatever way they can to give away the family silver," said Franz Matzner at
> >> the Natural Resources Defense Council.
>
> >> Tongass logging fell dramatically in the 1990s, and for years now has existed
> >> at levels that do not require slicing roads and clearcuts into virgin
> >> old-growth forests, as the Forest Service itself has acknowledged.
>
> >> "The new plan suffers from the same central problem as the old plan. It leaves
> >> 2.4 million acres of wild, roadless backcountry areas open to clear cutting
> >> and new logging roads," said Earthjustice attorney Tom Waldo. "The Tongass is
> >> worth a whole lot more to the American people as a standing forest than it is
> >> as a sea of stumps and logs."
>
> >> The land management plan released today was ordered more than two years ago by
> >> a federal court which concluded that the old plan justifying opening Tongass
> >> wildlands for development was invalid due to several factors, including a
> >> gross overestimation of demand for Tongass logs.
>
> >> Congress also has expressed concern with Tongass wilderness logging. The House
> >> of Representative has voted three times to stop taxpayer dollars from funding
> >> new logging roads there.
>
> >> In September 2006, the federal District Court of Northern California ordered
> >> the Bush administration to reinstate the 2001 Roadless Area Conservation Rule
> >> to protect almost 50 million acres of National Forests and grasslands across
> >> the lower 48 states and Puerto Rico from road construction, logging, and other
> >> harmful development.
>
> >> Roadless area of the Tongass National Forest in southeast Alaska.
> >>           (Photo credit unknown)
> >>    http://www.ens-newswire.com/ens/jan2008/20080125_tongass.jpg
>
> >> Judge Elizabeth Laporte ruled that the Bush administration violated both the
> >> National Environmental Policy Act and the Endangered Species Act by when it
> >> repealed the Roadless Rule and put into place another rule without any
> >> substantial analysis or need.
>
> >> But the long term status of the roadless areas in the Tongass National Forest
> >> in Alaska was not settled by Judge Laporte. In 2003, the Bush administration
> >> exempted the Tongass from the roadless rule by creating a separate amendment
> >> that was based on the validity of the Tongass Land Management Plan.
>
> >> "The Forest Service is losing money hand over fist on roads that Americans
> >> don't even want," said Christy Goldfuss of Environment America.
>
> >> "Today," said Caitlin Hills with American Lands Alliance, "the federal
> >> government, in defiance of the facts and the strongly expressed sentiments of
> >> the American people to protect all roadless areas, has answered 'fire up the
> >> chainsaws.'"
>
> >> "The Tongass is the crown jewel of our nation's roadless wildlands," said
> >> Trish Rolfe at Alaska Sierra Club. "Wild salmon, bears, eagles, and wolves
> >> thrive there among moss-draped ancient trees, along crystalline fjords and
> >> untamed rivers. It has nine million acres of roadless areas that lack
> >> permanent protection. The Bush administration has just put some of the best of
> >> them on the chopping block."
>
> >> "All over the Tongass there are roadless wildlands that local people and
> >> visitors hold dear, jeopardized by this new plan," said Gregory Vickrey with
> >> Tongass Conservation Society.
>
> >> "These are special places critical to the region's incredible fish, deer and
> >> other wildlife, world-famous recreational opportunities, cherished subsistence
> >> practices, and the businesses and jobs that depend on the region's natural
> >> treasures," said Vickrey. "These are the very things that make Southeast
> >> Alaskans most want to live here."
>
> >> Environment News Service (ENS) 2008.
>
> > Agree that Bush is a disaster. But which party has the will to tackle
> > that most devastating
> > of environmental impacts, the population growth which is now almost
> > totally a function of
> > immigration, legal and illegal?
>
> > Dennis
>
> xxxx
> We eventually lose unmanaged forest land to uncontrollable fires.
> Strip ( clear cutting ) harvesting provides fire breaks so the whole
> plot doesn't go up in flames. Reforestation plants trees in those strips
> and in 20-30 years the old growth strip is harvested.
>
> We should properly manage ALL our forest lands to preserve this finite
> resource.
> I have watched forest fires out of control and they are beautiful at
> night as the trees explode and fire balls jump tree top to tree top.
> Impossible to control and too hot to get near.
> Tree hugger s and Spotted Owl freaks are the forest's worst enemy next
> to fire as No.1 ...
> Logging on the Olympic Peninsula was halted years ago putting an
> industry out of business just to save an endangered Owl which was later
> found to actually prefer living in a McDonald's elevated sign in Los
> Angeles California........
> So much for the environmental movement and it's loony ideas.
>
> 29- Hide quoted text -
>
> - Show quoted text -

Who properly managed it before we came along? mother nature. She has a
way of cycling things the way they should be which I suppose is why it
is being chosen that we are a limited entity upon her back too. She
makes changes to accomadate herself to rid us...like fleas when a dog
scratches. The forests did quite fine on their own before we came
along and this is what the cycle of fires, tornadoes...etc. does. It
works out the kinks that need working. From the death of trees in fire
comes the rebirth of new and improved and needed forests. Forests get
too large and the branches too high...and so. Thus limiting the animal
population too. Then the forest fire wipes out the larger trees
allowing for smaller growth again...branches within reach again for
new animals to come back and enjoy. It is the lifelong cycle that has
been going on forever before we stepped onto the shores and decided we
could take over. Nature eventually reclaims what is nature. It is a
lesson in Ecology.

Unfortunately now that we are in the picture. It is far more difficult
to justify allowing her to run her coarse. Essentially it is a
Catch-22. No one will win.

~Magua~