For Immediate Release: December 3, 2004

Evidence Mounts that "Healthy Forest" Legislation Promoting Harmful Logging

Bill Signed One Year Ago Starting to Show Bad Results

Matthew Koehler, Native Forest Network, 406/542-7343
Gary MacFarlane, Friends of the Clearwater, 208/882-9755
Udi Lazimy, American Lands Alliance, 303/473-9525
Steve Holmer, Unified Forest Defense Campaign, 202/429-2647

Many of the projects the Forest Service has begun planning under the Healthy Forests Restoration Act are primarily focused on logging, rather than protecting homes and communities from fire or restoring our national forests, say conservationists. Rather, the law greatly limits the public’s ability to participate in management decisions, or challenge decisions harmful to the forests and does not ensure protections for old-growth forests or roadless wildlands.

The proposed Middle East Fork Hazardous Fuel Reduction project on Montana’s Bitterroot National Forest would mix a small amount of bona-fide community protection work with a plan to log nine square miles of forest, including logging in previously un-logged, old-growth forests.

"Instead of a real community protection project, the first Healthy Forests Restoration Act project proposed in Montana in reality is a 6,000 acre logging project, including logging of huge legacy trees measuring nearly four feet in diameter," said Matthew Koehler of Native Forest Network.

"The Forest Service is effectively holding the community protection work hostage by including it in this massive logging plan."

The Arapaho-Roosevelt National Forest is planning a major logging project in the Estes Valley, between Estes Park and Pinewood Springs, Colorado. The project is intended to reduce the amount of trees on 6,000-7,000 acres throughout the valley in order to reduce the fuel loads that pose a potential threat to local homeowner in the event of a wildfire. However, the project will damage two roadless areas, and much of the proposed cutting is far the communities at-risk.

"Projects like Estes Valley in northeast Colorado should focus on protecting homes, not opening the door to logging in places the public wants to preserve for future generations," said Udi Lazimy, Colorado organizer for American Lands Alliance. "It is totally unacceptable for the Forest Service to plan on entering roadless areas and clear cut large areas in the backcountry when planning projects to reduce fire hazards to communities."

The Blacktail Project, located mainly on Idaho’s Nez Perce National Forest is in the lower South Fork watershed, an area that has been heavily damaged by past logging and roadbuilding. The project is planning 3,210 acres of logging, and 4 new miles of road construction in area with severe water quality problems. Most of the project area is far from nearby communities. The project also proposes to amend the forest plan to weaken soil protection standards and allow logging in old growth forests.

"The last thing the South Fork watershed needs it more logging and roadbuilding," said Gary Macfarlane of Friends of the Clearwater. "A better plan would focus on the areas around homes on private lands – this is what will keep people safe – not logging that will only further pollute the streams."