🚀 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.
>
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>
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Shmitty------------don't you know nothing no more?