The Washington Post Saturday, September 20, 2003
Letters to the Editor

To hear Mark Rey tell it, you would think that the forests catching fire
are roadless old-growth and wilderness areas. Not true. The areas
burning have been logged in the past and have many roads running through
them.

The so-called Healthy Forests Initiative is the same old
one-size-fits-all prescription that the logging industry always has
touted. Whether it is pines in Florida, maples in Michigan, firs in the
Rockies, or oaks in the Appalachians, the management plan is the same:
Build more roads and cut down more big, old trees. Apparently, the only
healthy forest is a horizontal forest.

Thinning of brush and flammable materials close to homes is not what the
Bush administration and some in Congress are proposing. They propose
more of what caused the problems in the first place: hastily considered
road building and cutting trees miles from homes and other structures.
This protects neither forest health nor communities at risk.

STEVEN KRICHBAUM, Staunton
The writer works for Shenandoah Ecosystems Defense Group and Virginia
Forest Watch.

Agriculture Department Undersecretary Mark Rey [letters, Sept. 8] said
that time removed from national forests that is "of commercial value"
saves "taxpayer dollars".

From 1992 to 2001, 91 national forests had a cash-flow loss of $2.95
billion from logging 4.3 million acres to cut 31.8 billion board feet.
That's a loss of $685 an acre.

On the other hand, 17 forests turned a profit of $15 per acre or $1.72
per thousand board feet. While that's not a huge profit, it at least
isn't a drain on taxpayers.

If enacted, President Bush's Healthy Forests Initiative will make it
easier to sell timber without much useful citizen input or a standard
environment impact statement. The initiative also would curb citizen
appeals.

The 1976 National Forest Management Act was designed to encourage
citizen involvement. This bill undercuts that dialogue. The mantra now
seems to be, "Trust us. We know what we are doing is good for the forest."

ROBERT E. WOLF, St. Leonard, MD.