Educate Yourself and Your Elected
Officials About Wildfires and Logging

There is a wealth of scientific information that documents the strong link between U.S. Forest Service management activities such as commercial logging, grazing and roadbuilding and an INCREASE in wildfire intensity and severity. In fact, during the wildfires of 2000 we witnessed this connection firsthand. The majority of the wildfires that occurred on National Forest lands managed by the U.S. Forest Service occurred on lands that had been opened to logging, grazing, roadbuilding and other extractive activities.

The recent calls by the timber industry and their Congressional supporters to increase logging in National Forests to reduce fire risk are based on politics, not on sound science.

Below you will find links to information the Wildfires of 2000 and the issue of wildfires, logging and fire ecology in general. Please educate yourself and your elected officials about these critical issues that are impacting the management of America's National Forests.

• Western Fire Ecology Center: www.fire-ecology.org
  
  
• Wildfires and Logging: Wildfire Info Center
  
  
• American Lands Alliance: www.americanlands.org
  
  
• From The Ashes: Reducing the Rising Costs and Harmful Effects of Western Wildfires: www.taxpayer.net/forest/fromtheashes/html/index.htm
  
  
• The Wildland-Urban Interface: Protecting Communities from Forest Fires: http://www.swfa.org/SWFApositionpaper.pdf
  
  
• Assessment of Summer 2000 Wildfires: www.pacificbio.org/pubs/wildfire2000.pdf
  
  
• Ponderosa Poster Child: www.swanview.org
  
  
• Environmental Media Services: www.ems.org/wildfires/facts.html

Educate These Elected Officials:

• YOUR U.S. SENATOR U.S. Senate Washington D.C. 20510 Switchboard: (202) 224-3121 www.senate.gov
  
  
• YOUR U.S. REPRESENTATIVE U.S. House of Representatives Washington D.C. 20515 Switchboard: (202) 224-3121 www.house.gov
  
  
• President George Bush The White House 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW Washington, DC 20500 Email: president@whitehouse.gov (202) 456-6213 fax: (202) 456-2461

"The Native Forest Network's media work during last summer's wildfire season was the most effective educational effort with the media itself that I have witnessed in over 30 years. All my colleagues here in Washington D.C. were mightily impressed to observe how- for the first time ever- logging the forests was seen as a part of the problem by the media, and NOT the solution. The Native Forest Network educated the media and the public about the true situation in a way that I have never seen before, and transformed the nature of the debate, I think forever."
- Brock Evans, Executive Director of the Endangered Species Coalition

During the Wildfires of 2000, the Native Forest Network successfully educated the public and the media about the relationship between logging and wildfires in national and regional media outlets such as the New York Times, Washington Post, Wall Street Journal, Associated Press, USA Today, Washington Times, Philadelphia Inquirer, Denver Post, Seattle PI, Oregonian Idaho Statesman, NPR's All Things Considered, Washington Public Radio, Northeast Public Radio and the Lehrer News Hour on PBS. With another big fire season on the horizon, NFN's connections with the media will again prove critical to counter the predictable rhetoric from the timber industry.

For more information about the Native Forest Network's work this issue contact:

Matthew Koehler
Native Forest Network
Koehler@wildrockies.org
(406) 542-7343