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Shutting down the West: Agriculture
chief upholds management plan for 11.5 million acres of Sierra
By JIM WASSERMAN Associated Press Writer 12.27.01
from Sierra
Times
 SACRAMENTO
(AP) - The Bush administration announced support Thursday for a
Clinton-era management plan that giving a new environmental tilt
to managing 11.5 million acres of national forest in the Sierra
Nevada.
U.S. Agriculture Under Secretary Mark Rey, who oversees the U.S.
Forest Service, upheld earlier agency decisions that rejected
appeals by loggers, ski resorts and off-road groups hoping to
kill the plan.
"The plan is a final agency decision which is now being
implemented," Rey said.
The management plan, formally called the Sierra Nevada
Framework, shifts the Forest Service's emphasis from logging
old-growth forests to protecting them on 4 million acres. It
also bans logging on most trees larger than 20 inches, while
limiting logging in a 460-mile stretch of California and Nevada
to levels one-tenth those reached during the Reagan
administration in the 1980s.
California Forestry Association President David Bischel called
Rey's ruling the "worst decision they could have made"
and one that will "add to the risk of catastrophic
wildfire."
His and other opposition groups may take their cases to court.
More work remains on the plan, Rey said, and he asked supporters
and opponents to delay legal action until they see the results.
Forest service officials, after nine years crafting a management
vision that began aiming to protect the endangered spotted owl,
are now working on revisions to better prevent destructive
wildfires. Pacific Southwest Regional Forester Jack Blackwell
will announce a so-called "action plan" early next
week, officials said.
Environmentalists fear those might be a backdoor way to
accomplish more logging in the nation's longest unbroken
mountain range.
Rey, a former timber industry lobbyist, declined to offer
details on the action plan, saying it will be announced soon.
But environmental spokesmen had nothing but praise for Rey's
decision not to throw out the Sierra Nevada Framework.
"Today the sun is shining on California's Range of
Light," said Jay Watson, regional director of the
Wilderness Society.
Craig Thomas, spokesman for the Sierra Nevada Forest Protection
Campaign, agreed, saying, "I think California is leading
the way in terms of this agency bringing its credibility
back."
Bob Roberts, director of California Snow, a group of Sierra
Nevada ski resorts, said Rey should have scrapped the plan.
Ski resorts won't be able to add new lifts if they can't remove
trees larger than 20 inches in diameter, Roberts said, which
makes him "feel recreations has been a casualty of the
process."
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