Killing Forests to Save Them

Clearly, the Oregon fire that President Bush used as a backdrop Thursday was as catastrophic as he said it was. Bush was also right in saying the United States needed an aggressive program to reduce the danger of such fires, especially when they threaten people and homes. But the answer is not in allowing timber companies to indiscriminately rev up their chain saws or in undermining the nation’s basic environmental protection laws.

The Bush administration is using this drought-driven fire year to lend political credence to the efforts of timber executives to roll back the protection given the forests in recent years against more logging and road-building.

Bush wants to contract with loggers to thin as much as 190 million acres of federal forest land--an area about the size of Indiana--in exchange for cutting commercial-value logs, presumably in the thinned areas, but also large trees that survive forest fires. That sounds like logging the forests to save them.

Bush defends the plan as a way for the forests themselves to pay for fire protection, saying “there’s nothing wrong with people being able to earn a living off of effective forest management.” But the key to holding down forest fires is in clearing the tangle of brush and small trees that have little commercial value and allowing the larger, more fire-resistant trees to remain uncut. The older trees shelter wildlife, help maintain clean watersheds and provide recreation areas.

The president’s program also would remove from law a provision that he claimed “imposed extraordinary procedural requirements” on the Forest Service when projects were challenged. One lumber executive decried such challenges as “this runaway train of mismanagement and lawsuit abuse.” But a federal report says only 20 of 1,671 thinning projects in fiscal 2001 were challenged and none went to court.

A more reasonable blueprint for forest protection is at hand--the landmark Sierra Nevada Framework, which would coordinate management of 11 national forests in the Sierra. Its focus is on clearing trees and brush around vulnerable communities. Trees of up to 30 inches in diameter--valuable as lumber--could be cut within a quarter-mile of any settlement and trees of up to 20 inches in diameter within the next mile and a quarter. These areas should get priority, rather than remote forests that are valuable for their big timber but where fires pose little threat to people.

If logging companies are concerned about red tape affecting efforts to clear underbrush, Congress should order a simpler fix without weakening environmental laws. Otherwise the nation will be holding a fire sale that only a logger could enjoy.