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- Newsgroups: misc.activism.progressive
- Path: sparky!uunet!cs.utexas.edu!wupost!mont!pencil.cs.missouri.edu!rich
- From: ECONEWS via Jym Dyer <jym@mica.berkeley.edu>
- Subject: NEWS: "Timber Industry Writes Own Rules"
- Message-ID: <1992Dec29.063725.161@mont.cs.missouri.edu>
- Followup-To: talk.environment,ca.environment
- Originator: rich@pencil.cs.missouri.edu
- Keywords: environment forest
- Sender: news@mont.cs.missouri.edu
- Nntp-Posting-Host: pencil.cs.missouri.edu
- Organization: The Naughty Peahen Party Line
- Distribution: na
- Date: Tue, 29 Dec 1992 06:37:25 GMT
- Approved: map@pencil.cs.missouri.edu
- Lines: 107
-
- [From EcoNet ecotopia.news Conference]
-
- ================================================================
- => From: nec@igc.apc.org
- => Date: 12:11 pm Nov 16, 1992
-
- Timber Industry Writes Own Rules
-
- by Andy Alm
-
- Environmentalists say the state Board of Forestry caved in to
- timber industry pressure last month when it approved broad new
- forest practice rules.
-
- The board's own attorney was not there, but the first two rows
- in the audience were occupied by a squadron of timber company
- lawyers who made ongoing unsolicited remarks and comments,
- according to Mendocino County Forest Advisory Committee member
- Meca Wawona.
-
- "It was the classic case of the industry regulating itself,"
- she said.
-
- In the works for more than a year, the rules were intended to
- address old-growth and wildlife protection, assure sustained
- yield and limit clearcutting. The board was under a court-
- ordered timeline to make sure rules governing logging on private
- land satisfied the Forest Practices Act and provided protection
- equivalent to the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA).
-
- Whose Rules?
-
- Yet environmental activists who observed the board's
- deliberations said the final changes and process served the
- interests of the timber industry rather than protecting the
- environment.
-
- The old-growth, sensitive watersheds, siliviculture and
- sustained-yield rules packages are full of examples of how the
- industry's influence took the teeth out of the regulations.
-
- Even the term "old growth" was eliminated from the old-growth
- package, replaced with "late successional forest stands" to
- allow forests that have old-growth-like characteristics to be
- used as surrogates in place of protecting remnant virgin stands.
-
- The rules "no longer reflect any hint of compromise with the
- environmental community," said Sierra Club volunteer Kathy
- Bailey. 'While clearcut size would be limited to at most
- 40 acres under the new rules, that is a far cry from the
- "five-to-ten-acre clearcut limits put forward by environmental
- organizations. Even the definition of "selection cut" was
- changed to eliminate a minimum size standard for remaining
- trees to be counted, defeating the notion that selection cutting
- should maintain the age and size characteristics of the forest
- stand, Wawona said.
-
- Objection Sustained
-
- References to the "productive potential" of timberland were
- stricken from the sustained yield rules, leaving landowners
- to define sustained yield on their own -- even if that means
- a sustained yield of 30-year-old trees. Wawona noted that this
- is a clear shift from the Forest Practices Act's mandate of
- maintaining "maximum production of high-quality timber."
-
- "These rules attempt to re-define the Forest Practices Act,"
- she said.
-
- While the new rules for the first time allow designation of
- watersheds as "sensitive" to further logging, the process for
- nominating sensitive watersheds was made so difficult that even
- the Department of Fish and Game's representative said it is
- unlikely that the agency will have the resources to put even
- the most damaged watersheds on the list.
-
- Bailey noted that simple changes in wording created huge
- loopholes in the final rules packages. For example, the rules
- require protection of wildlife species over a "substantial"
- portion of a forest, but the terms "species" and "substantial"
- are not defined, leaving a lot of room for interpretation.
-
- Wawona noted that any substantial references to standards or
- goals had the phrase "where feasible" inserted, leaving the
- California Department of Forestry with the task of making
- economic arguments, even though it is not privy to timber
- companies' economic information.
-
- The Board of Forestry must adopt findings to justify the new
- rules, and has the matter on its December 1 and 2 agenda. From
- there, the rules must go to the state Office of Administrative
- Law for a review of their enforceability and consistency with
- state law. Environmental organizations are already preparing
- comments urging OAL to reject the packages.
-
- The Redwood Coast Watersheds Association's lawsuit challenging
- the Board of Forestry's regulations remains a wild card in the
- process. Filed in May, 1991, final arguments in the suit were
- heard in September. The decision on whether the new rules
- adequately fulfill Forest Practices Act and CEQA requirements
- is now in the hands of San Francisco Superior Court Judge Stuart
- Pollock.
-
- (From ECONEWS, Newsletter of the Northcoast Environmental
- Center, November 1992. Write 879 9th St., Arcata, CA 95521,
- or e-mail nec@igc.apc.org, for a free copy.)
-
-