A federal official lets stand Bush guidelines that will triple the activity in Sierra forests.LA Times 3-22-05

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A federal official lets stand Bush guidelines that

will triple the activity in Sierra forests.LA Times

3-22-05

 

 

Logging Decision Upheld

A federal official lets stand Bush guidelines that

will triple the

activity in Sierra forests.

By Bettina Boxall, Times Staff Writer

 

 

A Bush administration official Monday upheld a

decision to boost

logging in Sierra Nevada national forests.

 

In a five-paragraph decision, Agriculture

Undersecretary Mark Rey left

unchanged guidelines that will triple current logging

levels on the

range's 11.5 million acres of national forest.

The Sierra forests have been the scene of a long,

bitter fight for more

than a decade. The Clinton administration slashed

timber cutting and

increased wildlife protections.

 

Officials argued that the steps were necessary to

reverse damage done

by a century of grazing, logging of most of the

range's large, old trees

and suppression of the natural cycle of wildfires.

 

The Bush administration dropped many of the

Clinton-era restrictions,

saying they made it impossible for managers to

adequately thin the

forests of dense growth that fuel destructive blazes.

 

Conservationists and California Atty. Gen. Bill

Lockyer have sued to

block the Bush changes, saying they will harm the

environment, while the

California Forestry Assn., a timber industry group,

has also sued, on

the grounds that the Bush revisions do not increase

logging enough.

 

The various groups had little to say about Rey's

decision, which his

office issued without comment.

 

A former timber industry lobbyist, Rey had wide

discretion to order

further revisions in the plan. But after three months

of review, he chose

to let it stand.

 

" We are very pleased here in California, and will

continue to implement

the decision, " said regional Forest Service spokesman

Matt Mathes.

 

 

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