Group Says Logging may not be Best Economic Use of National Forests
http://forests.org/-- Forest Conservation Archives
12/17/98
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Title: Group Says Logging may not be Best Economic Use of National
Forests
Source: The Associated Press
Status: Copyrighted, contact source to reprint
Date: 12/17/98
Byline: Mary Ann Lickteig
MONTPELIER, Vt. (AP) -- Environmentalists, business owners and others
filed a suit Thursday that could halt logging in national forests until
the Forest Service proves the the benefits of logging outweigh the
costs.
The lawsuit in U.S. District Court claims the agency violates federal
law by failing to consider the economic and social benefits of a
standing forest.
Oregon's Breitenbush Hot Springs is among the plaintiffs.
The lawsuit comes at a time when the U.S. Forest Service has reduced its
timber program. Last year, 3.5 billion board feet were harvested from
national forestlands. In the 1980s the figure often reached 12 billion.
Forest Service spokesman Alan Polk refused to comment on the lawsuit,
but attributed the decline in timber sales to evaluation of the impact
of logging and a shift in harvesting strictly for timber production to
harvesting for the health of the forest.
"The goal of the lawsuit is to compel the proper accounting," said
plaintiff's attorney Brian Dunkiel.
He said uncut forests generate income and jobs just as logging does, and
the Forest Service is required to consider other uses.
The suit was filed in Vermont because several plaintiffs and Dunkiel are
from Vermont, he said.
"This case is really about jobs versus jobs. There's a certain amount of
jobs and economic activity that's created by logging public lands and
there's a certain amount of jobs and economic activity that's created by
unlogged public lands, and we want to find out how the scales balance
out," he said.
The suit was initiated by Forest Guardians, an environmental group based
in Santa Fe, N.M. and includes plaintiffs and written testimony from
several states.
They include an Indiana owner of a wood lot near Drain, Ore., a Montana
mushroom harvester who owns a restaurant, environmental and outdoor
groups,the owner of a medicinal herb company in Indiana and a hunter
from Arizona who claims he loses hunting opportunities when forests are
logged.