>Subject: US Forest Service "New Agenda" &
Too Much Timber Going to Waste:British Columbia
Patrick & Netters,
These are just two recent reports regarding BC and the US Pacific Northwest.
The first relates to road building & the second to a new change in the
Forest Practices Code of BC Act which allows timber to be burried in roads &
burning of timber on the landing. Patrick Moore asked me to forward evidence
in BC that proves that there is "sympathetic management" or relaxation of
standards. Another relaxation is the recent changes to the biodiversity
guidebook that allow seral stage distribution objectives for landscape
biodiversity objectives to be located on 100 per cent constrained forest
lands such as inoperable timber types for instance. No landscape level
biodiversity objectives have been approved in British Columbia as of April
1st, 1998, since there have been no landscape unit plans approved either;
therefore the objectives, strategies and the measurement of performance
indicators for meeting biodiveristy commitments to conserve old seral stages
and dependent wildlife are non-existent.
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> U.S. CHIEF FORESTER DOMBECK ANNOUNCES "NEW AGENDA" FOR THE 21ST
> CENTURY:
> In a March 2 speech to agency employees, Forest Service
> Chief Michael Dombeck announced a new commitment to watershed health
> improvements, sustainable forest management, outdoor recreation and a
> science based forest road policy. Dombeck called watershed
> restoration and maintenance the "oldest and highest calling of the
> Forest Service," and announced it would be the over-riding priority of
> forest planning and management.
> "With 80 percent of the nation's fresh water sources originating on
> the National Forest system lands, in a very real sense the National
> Forests are the headwaters of the nation," he said.
> This speech and the Chief's proposed roads moratorium
> have set off an intense backlash from Western Republicans. Rep. Helen
> Chenoweth (R-ID), Chairman of the House Subcommittee
> on Forests and Forest Health criticized Forest Service Chief Michael
> Dombeck's leadership at a Feb. 25 hearing proclaiming that the Forest
> Service is "broken" and cannot be fixed. She and other pro-timber
> Representatives challenged Dombeck to justify the proposed
> eighteen-month roadbuilding moratorium and indicated they will
> actively oppose it.
>
> LOGGING AND LANDSLIDES
> Reports continue to link logging to landslides continue to
> grow. An article by Lance Robertson in the Eugene Register- Guard
> details an Oregon state study that found landslides are up
> to four times more likely in logging clearcuts than in unharvested
> older forests. The study was launched after a 1996 storm caused
> thousands of landslides in Oregon's forests and collapsed
> hundreds of logging roads. Investigators documented more than 600
> slides after walking 136 miles of streams and inspecting 170 miles of
> logging roads. The study found the volume of erosion in clearcuts was
> about double that of slides in mature forests, possibly indicating
> that logging-related slides are more intense and deliver more sediment
> into streams.
John Foster
Box 271,
Clearwater, BC
VOE INO
Ph: 250-587-6402
Fax:250-587-6432
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