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Defenders Magazine
Defenders in Action: Logging Bill Endangers Forests
Add one more anti-environmental bill to those already careening around the House this spring. The Forest Emergency Recovery and Research Act would put pristine forests at risk by promoting logging in areas freshly damaged by natural disturbances, when forests are most vulnerable and logging most damaging.
The bill—better known as the Walden salvage logging bill, after its sponsor, Rep. Greg Walden—allows for the immediate selling of trees in areas affected by storms, floods, mudslides and fire. It is expected to hit the House floor for a vote by summer.
“This bill adopts a haphazard approach to forest management by encouraging logging wherever and whenever a disaster occurs, without regard to environmental impacts,” says Defenders’ Staff Attorney Mike Leahy.
The Walden bill would also threaten endangered wildlife, such as salmon and grizzly bears, by circumventing the protections of the Endangered Species Act and allowing logging in vital habitat. It also makes allowances for new logging roads, which are unlikely to be removed once logging operations cease.
Supporters of the bill say forests are healthier if they are cleared with bulldozers and chainsaws and replanted by people. But recent scientific studies—which pro-timber-industry forces in the Bush administration tried to quash—have shown that logging after a forest fire is ecologically harmful and delays forest recovery because it not only increases the likelihood of future fires, but it also causes hillside erosion that in turn pollutes rivers and destroys fish habitat.
“The only argument for rushing forward with timber sales in just-damaged forests is to get at valuable trees that otherwise may not have been available to timber companies for a long time, if ever, making this bill simply an opportunistic but unjustified windfall for the timber industry,” says Leahy.
To learn more, visit National Forests.
