🚀 go-pugleaf

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