In response to last summer's catastrophic forest fires throughout the West, the Bush administration is pushing a so-called "healthy forest initiative" that would give timber corporations a smokescreen to log protected old-growth forests on public lands and wilderness areas in the name of fire prevention. Ominously, Bush's "healthy forest initiative" would also suspend environmental laws and limit public participation and judicial review.
Contrary to sound fire prevention practice, the administration's plan promotes logging the largest, most fire-resistant trees in roadless areas far from the urban-wildland interface which are home to most of our remaining ancient trees. Forest biologists and ecologists agree that commercial logging of large fire-resistant trees actually increases the danger and severity of forest fires instead of reducing fire risks because it leaves behind more flammable needles, brush, and smaller branches and limbs, and brush. Logging the largest trees removes a forest's shade canopy, allowing the forest floor and natural debris to dry into prime fuel for wildfires.
A September 2000 report by the U.S. Department of Interior and a 2001 audit by the U.S. Department of Agriculture both found that wildfires are more severe in areas where extensive logging and road building has occurred. Logging roads also increase the presence of the leading cause of wildfires: humans. According to federal statistics, humans have started 88% of our forest fires!
As of this writing, the Bush administration's fire plan is not following a single legislative track. By trying to implement certain components of the plan in various venues the administration hopes to avoid public scrutiny. Riders attached to the Interior Appropriations Bill that would have enacted Bush's plan failed to pass Congress last session following an outcry by the environmental community. Several less drastic fire prevention bills have been introduced in Congress:
the Craig/Domenici amendment and the Feinstein/Wyden alternative.
