REDWOOD NEEDLES
REDWOOD NEEDLES
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Two years ago, the national Club membership voted down the ballot initiative which stated, "Shall the Sierra Club support protecting all federal publicly-owned lands in the United States by advocating an end to all commercial logging on these Lands?". This year, it passed with 66% in favor and 34% opposed. The message from the voting members of the Sierra Club was clearly a message to our Congress that they went too far when they passed the "Logging without Laws" recissions bill. It reminds me of the quotation from Shakespeare, "Pardon me thou bleeding piece of earth, that I am meek and gentle with these butchers."
What the Club will no longer say in any forum is, "we believe that commercial logging on federal public lands is appropriate." It is up to each activist and level of the Club to decide whether to use this new position locally, just as it has always been our option to support the end of logging on old growth forests. This new position gives Club entities and individuals the freedom to advocate an end to commercial logging and to seek sponsors of such legislation. It does not prohibit any Club entity or individual from doing that which is currently allowed regarding negotiations with federal land agencies on forest plans. The message is: the members no longer believe that the indefinite continuation of commercial logging is the best way to protect the forests of our public lands.
The Sierra Club consists of 500,000 families united in their commitment to basic conservation values. The vote is not surprising when the timber industry and it's congressional allies have enacted legislation that exempts most commercial logging on our national forest from complying with any of the basic environmental laws such as the Clean Water Act, the Endangered Species Act, or the National Forest Management Act.
Commercial logging as played by the current rules is a desecration. Even under past legislation, commercial logging on national forests and other public lands has led to erosion, damaged streams and wildlife habitat and it costs taxpayers billions of dollars in subsidies. (The maze of subsidized logging roads in our national forests is even more extensive than the Interstate Highway system.) Ending commercial logging does not mean that all tree cutting is to be halted on all public lands. Non-commercial logging for domestic firewood or to reduce the hazard of forest fires would still be permitted. The large scale commercial logging that is causing most of the irreparable damage is what the voters want stopped. What voters want stopped are theft harvests. In a recent 24-page report released by the Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER) and the Government Accountability Project, whistle-blowers reported that the U.S. Forest Service obstructed an investigation into allegations that Weyerhauser Co. illegally harvested millions of dollars of timber from national forests in Oregon and Northern California. The report was reviewed by Los Angeles Staff writer, Alan Miller, stating that the Forest Service Agency quietly acquiesced in the harvesting and has failed to combat large-scale thefts.
Forest Service staff even went so far as to warn Weyerhauser employees that they were the targets of the investigations and disseminated confidential information about the probe. Six former members of a now-defunct federal task force created by the Forest Service in 1991 are whistle-blowers who have shown that their jobs were eliminated because their disclosures embarrassed the Agency. Miller reported that the Forest Service, which manages 191 million acres of public lands, is responsible for ensuring that logging companies remove only trees that they are entitled to harvest and to pay their full value under contract.
Investigations showed that Weyerhauser illegally cut up to 32,000 healthy green trees PER MONTH in a so-called salvage sale that limited the company to clearing only dead and diseased timber. The final cut was Weyerhauser illegally exported raw timber in violation of a law that requires any federal timber to be cut into logs or be otherwise processed before it is sent overseas. So much for maintaining local jobs.
This new position, showing that members do not trust the U.S. Forest Service to log anywhere, will not change the Sierra ClubÕs continued advocacy for new wilderness areas,national parks, ancient forest preserves and other legislative approaches to end or restrict logging in environmentally sensitive public forests. Similarly, local activists will continue to work within their regions to support forest protection strategies, even when these allow for some continued commercial logging on public lands. This ballot measure commits the Sierra Club to support federal legislation that bans all commercial logging on public lands, when and if it is introduced. It does not eliminate our other strategies to save forest values and improve forest management.
Looking into the future, one of our main strategies will be in replacing Congressional representatives who have advocated for bad forestry practices. Our local representative, Frank Riggs, is one of the worst; he voted the same as Gingrich 92% of the time. So the message here today is to remember all of this when Congressional elections come again. Please vote out the kind of people who allowed a salvage rider amendment to be attached to an unrelated spending bill that opened up logging without laws. And remember that the strength of the Sierra Club is in its ability to organize, inform and work effectively to protect America's environment. It did that this year through its single largest, grass-roots mobilization in the Club's history in the fight against the new Congress and its special interest allies who are pushing the "War on the Environment".
-- Krista Rector
Sonoma Group Chair
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