SAMPLE LETTER TO THE EDITOR

End Logging on Public Lands

I am writing to support ending commercial logging of America's public forests. Public forests should be preserved for future generations, and not sacrificed for the short term profit of private timber companies. Only 5% of our nation's original forests remain, almost all on public lands. Forests provide fish and wildlife habitat, clean air and water, erosion and flooding control, climate moderation, and recreation.

There is simply no need to continue cutting public forests. Approximately 75% of the timberland in the U.S. is already in private ownership, and national forests provide only 12% of U.S. wood products. This amount could be made up for by cutting waste (half of the volume in U.S. landfills is wood and paper fiber), decreasing exports of raw logs, or by using existing alternative fibers for paper. Logging on public lands is directly subsidized by the American taxpayers to the amount of $1 billion a year. This doesn't account for increased flooding, damaged fisheries, lost wildlife, and polluted air and water.

Your Name and City.

Include a photocopy of your printed letter to the editor in a short letter to your elected officials.

Dear Editor,

One hundred years ago, Congress attached an Interior appropriations "rider" that opened our national forests to logging. Its legacy is marred hillsides, fouled water, floods, mudslides, and the loss of our natural heritage.

Rep. McKinney (D-GA) and Rep. Leach (R-IA) recently introduced H.R. 2789, the National Forest Protection and Restoration Act. This bill would end the federal timber sales program and redirect logging subsidies into worker retraining, state revenue-sharing payments, ecological restoration, wood alternatives, and deficit reduction. It would protect forests, create new jobs, and save taxpayers hundreds of millions of dollars annually. We can make up what we consume from national forests (3.9% of our total wood consumption) by simply being less wasteful.

Taxpayers spent more than $1.3 billion to log our national forests in FY 1996. If we redirected this corporate welfare subsidy, we would have over $25,000 for each public lands timber worker for job retraining or ecological restoration work and over $200 million for federal deficit reduction! Furthermore, compared to logging, recreation on national forests contributes over 38 times more income to the nation's economy and over 31 times more jobs. Yet logging destroys wildlands, the very basis of the recreation economy.

Why does this insanity continue? Because big money talks. Timber barons increase their wealth felling our forests while we pay for logging roads, clean-up costs, replanting, and administration. They spend millions of dollars on Congressional campaign contributions and misleading advertising.

John Muir long ago said of national forests, "Since Christ's time and long before that, God has cared for these trees, saved them from drought, disease, avalanches, and a thousand straining, leveling tempests and floods; but He cannot save them from fools--only the American people can do that." It’s high time we did.

ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF LOGGING IS ENOUGH

One hundred years ago this year Congress did a terrible thing. Under industry pressure, an appropriations "rider" was attached to the Interior Department spending bill, opening this nation's national forests to logging for the first time. Prior to that, national forests were completely protected from all forms of commercial exploitation. A century later, the legacy of that early Logging Rider is marred hillsides, fouled water, floods and mudslides--the loss of our natural heritage.

Fortunately, Rep. Cynthia McKinney (D-GA) and House Banking and Finance Committee Chair Rep. Jim Leach (R-IA) on October 31st introduced into the House of Representatives H.R. 2789, the National Forest Protection and Restoration Act. This bill would end the timber sales program on federal public lands nationwide and would redirect logging subsidies into worker retraining, revenue-sharing payments to states, ecological restoration, alternatives to wood, and deficit reduction. It will protect forests, create new jobs, and save taxpayers hundreds of millions of dollars annually.

We do not need to log our public forests for our timber supply. Only 3.9% of the wood consumed in the U.S. comes from national forests. We can more than make up this amount simply by being less wasteful. For example, 48% of the hardwood lumber produced in this country is used to make shipping pallets--54% of which are used once and sent to landfills.

Perhaps most appalling is the economics of the federal logging program. In fiscal year 1996, for instance, the program spent over $800 million of taxpayer money, and another $530 million in off-budget accounts, and failed to return a single dime to taxpayer's pockets. In fact, the federal timber program now loses so much taxpayer money that if we stopped logging on national forests and redirected this corporate subsidy, we would have over $25,000 for each public lands timber worker for job retraining or ecological restoration work--and still have over $200 million left over to reduce the federal deficit! We could literally create more jobs by eliminating this wasteful corporate welfare program and reduce federal spending in the process.

What's more, the Forest Service's own figures show that recreation on national forests contributes over 38 times more income to the nation's economy, and creates over 31 times more jobs, than logging on national forests. Yet logging destroys the very basis of the recreation economy: wildlands.

So, why does this insanity continue? Why doesn't Congress eliminate the timber sale program on national forests? It would be good for the forests, the economy, and our children and grandchildren. The reason is both grim and simple: big money talks. The timber barons get fabulously wealthy felling ancient forests on public lands at the expense of the people. Taxpayers pay for logging road construction, clean-up costs, replanting, and administrative expenses.

To show their appreciation, logging corporations shower millions of dollars upon members of Congress in the form of campaign contributions. Millions more are spent on slick advertising to mislead the public. Despite the fact that the Forest Service's own polls show that most Americans oppose logging on national forests, the ecological destruction and fiscal irresponsibility continues. As Sierra Club founder John Muir said of national forests long ago, "Since Christ's time and long before that, God has cared for these trees, saved them from drought, disease, avalanches, and a thousand straining, leveling tempests and floods; but He cannot save them from fools--only the American people can do that." How true.

As citizens of this country, we are faced with a choice: we can, through our silence, allow the timber industry to continue picking our pockets and felling our forests; or we can hold our elected officials accountable and demand that they end the logging program on our federal public lands. The outcome of that choice will dictate what kind of national forests our children's children see in another hundred years. Will they see healthy forests recovering from the abuses of the twentieth century? Or will they see only stumps, devastated watersheds, and lifeless tree farms--victims of the harsh reality that forests cannot speak for themselves, and we as a society failed to speak for them?

One hundred years is enough. It's time to stop logging our national forests. Members of Congress who care about our childrens' future, clean water, and reducing the federal budget deficit will co-sponsor the National Forest Protection and Restoration Act.

Sam Hitt

End Logging on Public Lands

by Sam Hitt, Forest Guardians President

(804 words)

After a century of terrible waste and destruction, a bipartisan bill to end logging on public lands is being introduced has been introduced in Congress. This legislation redirects the federal logging budget to ecological restoration, community assistance and worker retraining while saving taxpayers money, protecting watersheds and conserving wildlife for future generations.

Today, with less than 5% of America's original forests remaining, almost entirely on public lands, it's hardly a radical idea. According to a recent Forest Service poll, 58 percent of Americans favor a halt to public land logging. Sierra Club members voted 2-1 last year for "zero cut.."

This legislation, sponsored by Democrat Cynthia McKinney of Georgia and Republican Jim Leach of Iowa, ends a corrupt system of bureaucratic welfare while preserving rural traditions, such as gathering firewood for personal use. Giving away valuable ancient trees below cost to giant timber companies would cease. The Forest Service made money selling trees only three years since 1950.

From 1980 through 1991, the agency's logging program lost nearly $6 billion. By redirecting this money, we could pay every timber worker $25,000 yearly, provide training in ecological restoration, fund badly needed rural community assistance projects and still have over $200 million left over to reduce the deficit. Private timberlands become less valuable by opening up steeper, higher elevation public lands to logging. Small woodlot owners simply can't compete when the government sells a 250 year old trees for under $2, as the Forest Service did in Alaska. Dumping cheap federal timber on the market creates little incentive for the private landowners - that controls over 80 percent of our commercial timber lands - to manage responsibly.

In fact, we don't need national forest timber. The total annual U.S. wood consumption is 100.3 billion board feet, while the annual timber volume cut from U.S. national forests is currently only 3.87 billion board feet - less than 4 percent. Even moderate gains in wood production efficiency, recycling and use of alternative wood fibers would more than make up for eliminating logging on public lands. Consider shipping pallets - nearly half the hardwoods produced in the U.S. are used to manufacture shipping pallets, 54 percent of which are used once then sent to the land fill.

Also, contrary to self-serving industry propaganda, logging will not make our forests less susceptible to fire. A congressionally funded scientific study of California's forests found "more than any other human activity, logging has increased the risk and severity of fires by removing the cooling shade of trees and leaving flammable debris." For nearly six decades, our public timber has been logged for the private gain of a few large corporations who buy political power and maintain logging subsidies with campaign contributions to key politicians from timber states. Today, while Idaho Republican Senator Larry Craig tries to gut the basic laws that protect national forests, Alaska's entire delegation pressures the administration to continue destruction of irreplaceable temperate rainforest. Their list of campaign contributors reads like a who's who list of the Fortune 500 timber companies. But even without political pressure, the forestry profession's traditional agricultural view of how forests work, and Forest Service budgetary incentives, guarantee a dominant role for logging on public lands. The federal government has wasted millions of taxpayer dollars creating trees farms on marginal lands, despite the fact that recreation creates more jobs - and thirty times more revenue - than logging does. The reason lies in little known laws, such as the Knutson-Vandenburg Act, that allow the Forest Service to keep a large share of timber sale money to repair damage caused by logging. The agency is not held accountable for this off-budget bonanza, encouraging them to log, waste money and create a top heavy bureaucracy. From 1991-1995, the Forest Service kept over $2 billion selling publicly owned trees. In the Southwest, nearly 40% of these funds are spent on overhead.

So much has been lost that we can no longer count on National Parks to protect ecological communities. Twenty-nine mammal populations have already disappeared from western national parks, despite complete protection from hunting, poisoning and habitat destruction. Small island-like reserves, cut-off by development, have become zoos where species go to die. Ending commercial logging will help "rewild" this fragmented landscape by connecting, protecting and enlarging our shrinking reserves of biodiversity.

However, these science-based strategies will never be implemented without the deedholders of public lands - the American public - demanding the timber industry stop picking our pockets and felling our forests. We owe it to our children - who will ask not why we supported the end of commercial logging on federal forests - but only why we waited so long.