After 100 Years, Commercial Logging of our National Forests Should End

By: Rene Voss

June 4 is an important date in U.S. history. One hundred years ago, on this date, in 1897, private lumber interests were for the first time authorized to log the national forests for profit. Thus began a sad chapter in the story of an abused national legacy. Over 95% of the primeval forests have been cut down. Where trees have grown back (in many places they haven't), the new "forests" are a shadow, often a pale shadow, of the rich ecosystems they once were.

Most people don't give the national forests a second thought. When they do think of them, many are surprised to learn what has happened, because they thought the national forests were protected, like the national parks. They are doubly surprised to learn that logging of the public trees is heavily subsidized by your tax dollars and mine (by one estimate: $765 million dollars in 1996).

But in recent years the role the nation's forests play in our lives has changed. They are now seen as critical reserves of ecological richness and natural beauty, as quiet places of retreat, recreation and spiritual renewal for growing numbers of families. For this reason the Sierra Club has launched an initiative to halt all commercial logging in the federal public forests. Legislation will soon be introduced in Congress as a step toward achieving this goal.

Opponents raise many questions; three of the most frequently heard are:

• Won't jobs be lost? Logging-related jobs have been going down for years because of automation, huge logging and sawmill machines, and unprocessed logs going overseas. The number of affected jobs is small compared to the corporate downsizings of recent times, and if current logging subsidies were redirected, we could allot $25,000 per year to help retrain each displaced worker and still have enough money left over to reduce the federal deficit.

• Won't the economies of the northwest falter? No. The northwest is booming. Moreover, recreation and tourism are the largest money and job producers in forested areas, with less boom and bust, whereas logging degrades the values people go there to enjoy.

• What about 2x4's and plywood for home building and for my weekend projects? In 1996 only 3.9% of the US needs were met with wood from national forests. The wood products you see with Georgia-Pacific and Weyerhauser stenciled on them come largely from lands privately owned by the forest industry. Better forestry practices, greater sawmill efficiencies, less waste (pallets waste huge amounts of lumber) and alternative materials can easily make up the 3.9% difference.

We in the Sierra Club think it's time to take a new look at the national forests and see them as FORESTS-- not just tree farms to be clearcut and turned into wastelands. They belong to you and me. We should tell our legislators and forest administrators how we feel about them that the time has come to make our national forests truly protected reserves and to stop commercial logging of these national treasures.

Rene Voss, rene.voss@mindspring.com from Atlanta, GA, is a member of Sierra Club Forest Reform Campaign Steering Committee