Diversity and species conservation

U.S. FWS Director: Lawsuits not hurting Endangered Species Act

by

I don’t have a link to the story, but the following article comes from Greenwire. I’m posting it here as a sort of companion piece to the ESA piece Sharon just posted regarding the House Resources Committee Hearing.

Lawsuits not hurting Endangered Species Act – FWS director
By Laura Petersen, E&E Reporter

The House GOP’s campaign against environmental groups that sue the federal government over endangered species management is not the way to improve the Endangered Species Act, according to Fish and Wildlife Service Director Dan Ashe.

“On the scale of the challenges that we face implementing the Endangered Species Act, litigation doesn’t even show up on the radar screen,” Ashe said in an interview this week marking his one-year anniversary as director.

Invasive species, habitat fragmentation, water scarcity, climate change and availability of reliable scientific information are all much more pressing issues than lawsuits, Ashe said.

In an effort to overhaul the Endangered Species Act, House Natural Resources Chairman Doc Hastings (R-Wash.) has focused particularly on the high number of lawsuits brought against the government under the law’s provision that allows citizens to sue if they disagree with a listing decision or a delayed decisionmaking process and have their legal fees paid for if they win.

Hastings has characterized the environmental groups that file suits regularly as “lawsuit-happy organizations that make a living off of suing the federal government” and called litigation costs “one of the greatest weaknesses” of the Endangered Species Act (E&E Daily, June 20).

Ashe dismissed the attacks as a “good sound bite,” noting that the amount of money the agency has paid out in legal fees is a small fraction of the $200 million a year it spends to implement the ESA and hardly enough to support entire nonprofit organizations.

“Can I get frustrated at [Center for Biological Diversity] and WildEarth Guardians, or my good friend Jamie Clark at Defenders [of Wildlife] when they decide to sue us? Yeah, I can,” Ashe said. “But on balance, I think it’s a strength for the Endangered Species Act, and not a weakness.”

The provision has been especially beneficial during presidential administrations that “did not have a friendly view” of implementing the law and protecting imperiled plants and animals, he said.

Last year, FWS struck a massive settlement agreement with environmental groups that set a six-year timeline for the agency to make decisions on 251 candidate species and initial findings on hundreds of other species. In exchange, the groups promised to not file more lawsuits.

The settlement has been “quite a success,” with both sides being “faithful” to the bargain, Ashe said.

Asked how he would reform the Endangered Species Act, Ashe said “reform is too strong of a word.”

However, he said the law can be better. The biggest improvement he would like to make is to increase financial incentives for endangered species conservation.

Spruce, Spruce Beetle, Fire and Goshawk

by
Dead trees dot Skyline Drive in the Manti-LaSal National Forest.
Ray Boren, for the Deseret Morning News

Terry Seyden sent this piece from the Salt Lake Tribune.

Here’s an excerpt:

Last month’s Lost Lake Fire, blackening thousands of acres near Teasdale, shows the need to step up forest treatments, Chappell believes.

“We just had a fire down here that should’ve opened a few eyes about logging and thinning.”

Utah Environmental Congress Program Director Kevin Mueller said leaving the trees alone won’t invite an unnatural fire. The spruce forest naturally burns at long intervals — once every 300 years — so the last century’s fire-suppression efforts that get blamed for creating dangerously thick forests haven’t had any effect on these areas. They grew thick naturally.

“We strongly believe the Forest Service shouldn’t be logging old-growth spruce,” he said, “partly because so much of the spruce has been hit by the spruce beetle.”

If trees are dead from spruce beetle, are they still good habitat? And if not, how can a test for the forest’s projects be :

The groups say goshawks need 6,000 acres to roam, and at least a third of that must be dense old-growth spruce that keeps out less-agile predators that compete with them. Where 68 pairs of the birds roamed Dixie when the Forest Service wrote its 1982 forest plan, only 30 remained last decade. As long as that’s the case, they say, the Forest Service can’t mess with habitat.

If they really need 2000 acres of dense spruce and that spruce is dying from spruce beetle it sounds like there is a problem that keeping the forest from doing treatments through litigation is not going to solve.

Hoping someone on the blog understands more about this than I and can explain.

Study: Fish and Wildlife Service Routinely Ignored Scientific Experts

by

The following was just released by the Center for Biological Diversity:

A new study in the international journal Bioscience finds that the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service routinely ignored scientific peer review when designating protected critical habitat for endangered species. According to the study published this month, the agency ignored recommendations by scientific experts to add areas to critical habitat to ensure the survival and recovery of endangered species 92 percent of the time.

“Our study shows the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service completely failed to rely on the best available science when deciding which habitat to protect for some of America’s most endangered species,” said Noah Greenwald, endangered species director at the Center for Biological Diversity and lead author of the peer-reviewed study. “This isn’t some meaningless bureaucratic oversight. Ignoring scientists’ advice jeopardizes the survival and recovery of endangered species.”

The designation of critical habitat is a key step in protecting the most important areas used by endangered species. Species with protected critical habitat are twice as likely to be recovering as those without it. As part of making a designation, the Fish and Wildlife Service must have experts outside the agency review the proposed designation to make sure it’s scientifically sound and suitable to help species survive and recover.

Using data obtained through the Freedom of Information Act, the study reviewed 169 peer reviews of 42 critical habitat designations for 336 species covering a five-year period (2002-2007). Of the 169 reviews, 85 recommended adding areas and 19 recommended subtracting areas. In response, the agency added areas in only four cases and subtracted areas in only nine cases. After peer review, 81 percent (34) of the 42 critical habitat designations were reduced by an average of 43 percent.

“Routinely, the agency dismisses scientific advice on the grounds that they need ‘flexibility’ to better serve endangered species,” said Stuart Pimm, chair of conservation at Duke University and one of the study’s authors. “There is absolutely no evidence that, in consistently denying threatened species their needed habitats, any species has benefitted.”

In addition to examining the peer reviews, the study presented case studies examining the process for designating critical habitat for the southwestern willow flycatcher and Cape Sable seaside sparrow. In the case of the flycatcher, the peer reviewers faulted the proposed designation for failing to include areas recommended by a scientific recovery plan. Rather than add additional areas, however, the agency cut the designation by 53 percent at the behest of a former political appointee at the Department of the Interior. In the case of the sparrow, the agency cut an area from critical habitat against the advice of peer reviewers (one of whom described the area as “extremely important”) based on the false premise that designation of critical habitat would conflict with Everglades restoration.

“Science, not politics, ought to drive which habitat is protected for endangered species,” said Greenwald. “Obtaining peer review shouldn’t simply be about checking off a box on a form. Saving species means saving the places they live and, when it comes to that, our best scientists need to be listened to.”

The study is the first to systematically examine a government agency’s response to peer review of its decisions. Peer review of government decisions is fundamentally different from peer review of scientific studies in that there is no editor to determine whether peer review has been properly considered or, if appropriate, followed. To rectify this situation, the study recommends appointing an arbiter to oversee the government’s response to peer review and giving agency scientists more independence to ensure closer adherence to scientific information.

More News on Colt Summit and “Collaboration”

by

This morning’s Missoulian has another look at the Colt Summit timber sale on the Lolo National Forest, the first timber sale on the Lolo to be litigated in over 5 years. Here are some snips from that article:

Project opponent George Wuerthner, a writer and ecologist, countered in an email that the cumulative effects are there for anyone to see from an airplane. In a series of photos he posted online (bit.ly/L1436w), he argued the Colt-Summit area is one of the few remaining bits of habitat left in the region.

“I was shocked to see how much of the Seeley-Swan Valley is already logged that is not readily visible from the main highway or even by driving backroads,” Wuerthner wrote. “The problem for the Forest Service is that they are up against limits. You can’t continue to cut more and more of the valley without jeopardizing other values. There is such a thing as cumulative impacts and death by a thousand cuts.”

Friends of the Wild Swan director Arlene Montgomery added that the legal record also contradicts Forest Service claims of being inclusive and thorough.

“I’ve been through the whole project record, and I didn’t see anything that the collaborators who’ve come out against us were any more involved than I was,” Montgomery said. “The fact they think they can paper over cumulative effects in an area so fragmented from past logging – it’s quite remarkable they put in such little regard for our laws. The environmental assessment was devoid of that kind of analysis. And that’s not a gray area where we didn’t know where the line was. It was pretty black and white.”

My personal feeling on the matter is that it’s important for people to understand that not all “collaborative” groups around the country are created equally.  Unfortunately, in the opinion of lots of conservation groups around the country, some of the “collaboration” currently taking place in Montana is viewed negatively because it feels more like a takeover of our public forests by largely well-funded organizations, the timber industry, local governments and politicians.

My observation being a part of some of these Montana “collaborations” is that if you don’t agree up-front to most of what the Forest Service and the timber industry wants to do anyway, that these “collaborative” groups  just make it difficult for a normal citizen or smaller organization to participate.  And, besides, many of these Montana “collaboration” meetings take place mid-day during the week, not exactly an ideal time for most of the general public.

So, essentially, the vast majority of the people attending some of these Montana collaborative meetings are paid to be there.  Either they work for the Forest Service, timber industry, well-funded conservation groups or local governments or a politician.  On top of that, many of the meetings never seem about understanding the latest science, research or legal requirements.  It’s more about supporting the Forest Service’s projects by attending these meetings, smiling, nodding in agreement, eating your bag lunch and then going out and running a PR campaign through paid ads, letters to the editors and hosting one-sided events to give the impression that everyone in the world agrees with what the Forest Service has come up with.

Take Colt Summit, for example. It’s clear from the administrative record that the Forest Service designed the Colt Summit Project and the specific prescriptions, then delivered the project to the SWCC (Southwestern Crown of the Continent Collaborative group) for approval and inclusion in the SWCC’s CFLRP application.

Claims by some of the “collaborators” that the plaintiffs didn’t participate in the up-front planning for the Colt Summit project are completely untrue.  In fact, the public record for this timber sale actually reflects a higher level of involvement from the plaintiffs from some of the ‘collaborators.’ Plaintiffs attended all meetings, all field trips and submitted extensive, detailed and substantive comments during the entire NEPA process.  Some of the collaborating conservation groups didn’t even submit detailed comments during NEPA.  They are essentially replacing their largely self-selective “collaborative group” for the NEPA process, which is open equally and inclusively for all Americans.

One of my main concerns with some of the worst examples of “collaboration” that I see in Montana is that some of these conservationist ‘collaborators’ are running what are essentially political campaigns, not campaigns to hold the Forest Service accountable and make sure that management of national forests is guided by law, the latest science and economically-sound policies.  These conservation groups, such as the Montana Wilderness Association,  have effectively abandoned any of these public education efforts. Honestly, I’m not sure that most of MWA’s new hires over the past few years have any clue about the law, science and economics of the federal timber sale program.  Furthermore, some of these conservation groups have basically neutered themselves from speaking out against Forest Service logging projects or the timber industry’s demands to do away with the public appeals process and exempt many Montana logging projects from court challenge.

What the future of national forest management looks like without an effective checks-and-balance on the Forest Service and timber industry is anyone’s guess, but my hunch is that some of these “collaborative” approaches that we are seeing here in Montana will not be in the best interest of America’s public lands legacy.

AWR Press Release on Colt Summit Timber Sale

by

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
 JUNE 21, 2012

Calling it “a great win for the lynx,” Mike Garrity, Executive Director of the Alliance for the Wild Rockies, announced that Federal District Judge Donald W. Molloy halted the Colt Summit Timber Sale on the Seeley Lake Ranger District on June 20th.

Garrity said, “Judge Molloy agreed with us that the Forest Service violated the National Environmental Policy Act by failing to analyze the project’s cumulative impacts on the lynx, which is listed as threatened under the Endangered Species Act.  Judge Molloy has remanded the project back to the agency for further consideration and analysis.”

Friends of the Wild Swan, the Alliance for the Wild Rockies, Native Ecosystems Council, and Montana Ecosystems Defense Council brought the lawsuit against the Lolo National Forest and were represented by Matt Bishop of the Western Environmental Law Center. The groups did not challenge the road reclamation work associated with the project.

“We are pleased that the court recognized that the analysis of effects to lynx by the Forest Service was inadequate,” said Arlene Montgomery, Program Director for Friends of the Wild Swan.  “This area is a critical wildlife linkage corridor between the Swan Range in the Bob Marshall Wilderness Area to the east and the Mission Mountains Wilderness Area to the west.  It was designated as lynx critical habitat and deserves extra protection.”

“This project was controversial because it was supported by groups and individuals associated with the Southwest Crown of the Continent Collaborative,” Garrity explained “But although the Montana Wilderness Association, the National Wildlife Federation and the Wilderness Society claimed they were heavily involved in the development of the project, the project records gave no indication of that.  It was proposed by the Forest Service and then supported by those groups despite the fact that there were no discussions of the impacts to lynx between the collaborators and the Forest Service.”

George Wuerthner, an independent ecologist, author, and photographer, recently flew over the Colt Summit area to photograph the area.  “I was shocked to see how much of the Seeley-Swan Valley is already logged that is not readily visible from the main highway or even by driving back roads. The problem for the Forest Service is that they are up against limits. You can’t continue to cut more and more of the valley without jeopardizing other values. There is such a thing as cumulative impacts and death by a thousand cuts.”

Judge Molloy on Colt Summit- E&E News

by

Here’s a link.

Here’s an excerpt:

In a brief order that will be followed by a lengthier written opinion, Molloy granted the Forest Service’s motion for summary judgment on several points. Among other things, he concluded that the Forest Service had adequately reviewed the potential direct impact of the proposal on lynx and grizzly bears.

But he ruled that the analysis of the project’s cumulative impact on lynx as required by the National Environmental Policy Act was not sufficient.

The Forest Service will now have to conduct that analysis before the plan can go ahead.

Megan Birzell of the Wilderness Society, a supporter of the plan, said Molloy’s finding was not a major setback because of the judge’s concurrent finding that the project passed muster under the Endangered Species Act.

“The judge said it won’t have an impact on lynx, but the Forest Service needs to beef up their analysis to better document that,” she said.

It will be interesting to see exactly what the documentation didn’t have that the judge was looking for.

Lawsuit could be filed to try to stop sale of leases in national forest

by

An article in The Daily Home reports:

The Southern Environmental Law Center has announced that it intends to sue the U.S. Bureau of Land Management and the U.S. Forest Service for violation of the Endangered Species Act if it goes forward with the sale of leases in the Talladega National Forest to oil and gas drilling interests.

The suit is being brought on behalf of Wildsouth and the National Resource Defense Council, as well as SELC.  The suit was prompted by the announcement that the BLM was planning to sell 36 parcels of national forest land totaling 43,038.3 acres, mostly in the Talladega National Forest. The sale is set for June 14.

The suit claims that the BLM and Forest Service “both failed to complete consultation with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service on the lease sale in light of information concerning newly listed species, newly designated critical habitat, recently discovered presence of new species and new impacts of drilling on these species and habitats.”

Click here to read Chris Norwood’s entire story.

UPDATE:  It’s being reported this afternoon that “The Bureau of Land Management will not auction leases to explore for gas and oil in 43,000 acres of the national forest land in Alabama. For now.”

10-12 Acres per Nest Not Enough? Black Backed Woodpecker Saga Continues

by

Here’s the link.

RENO, Nev. — Forest Service officials have agreed to move post-fire logging operations at Lake Tahoe farther away from nests with rare, black-backed woodpecker chicks at the request of conservationists who’ve been fighting the overall project for years.

But leaders of the John Muir Project – who have documented one nest in the path of the logging and suspect there are more – say the no-cut buffers the agency is implementing are far too small to protect one of the rarest birds in the Sierra Nevada.

“No credible black-backed woodpecker scientist would say it is enough – not even close,” said Chad Hanson, a wildlife ecologist and executive director of the group who has filed a petition seeking protection of the bird under the U.S. Endangered Species Act.

“It will kill them just as surely as logging right up to the nest tree,” he said.

Lawyers for the Forest Service told the group last week its proposed 60-acre buffers around each nest would undermine the 1,400-acre project’s goals of restoring the forest and reducing future catastrophic risks where the Angora fire destroyed 250 homes in South Lake Tahoe in 2007.

But Deputy Forest Supervisor Jeff Marsolais said Friday the agency and the private logging contractor agreed to move the fuels reduction operations at least 10 acres away from the nesting area until the chicks leave the nest. One acre is a little less than the size of a football field.

“The relocation shows our ongoing commitment to balance ecosystem values and our intent to maintain efficient operations in completing our Angora restoration efforts,” Marsolais said in a statement the agency provided to The Associated Press late Friday.

In addition to no logging within 10 to 12 acres of the identified nest tree, an additional 25 acres of habitat will be preserved within one-quarter mile of the tree, until the chicks “fledge,” USFS spokeswoman Cheva Heck said.

The area includes some of the last of the 156 acres of forest that remains uncut in the overall 1,400-acre project first proposed in early 2009 and under way for more than a year.

A federal judge in Sacramento earlier rejected a request for an injunction to block the logging filed by the John Muir Project and its parent Earth Island Institute.

The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals currently is considering their appeal claiming the Forest Service’s environmental assessment ignores the agency’s own science suggesting the project will harm the bird without effectively reducing long-term fire threats.

Hanson said the Forest Service’s own science consistently shows one pair of black-backed woodpeckers needs 100 to 200 acres of good habitat with a minimum 60-acre core for foraging. He said the latest logging will come so close to the nest tree that the noise alone may cause the adult birds to abandon the nest.

Rachel Fazio, a lawyer for the group who argued its case in the 9th Circuit last month in San Francisco, said it made no sense to rush to log the last remnants of the project area given it was more than 90 percent complete and therefore, based on the agency’s arguments, had already reduced fire threats accordingly.

Fazio said the chicks may “fledge” – or fly for the first time – within about three weeks but would remain dependent on their parents weeks longer and be especially vulnerable to predators.

“It will just be a little island of habitat so that maybe the birds survive for a week or so,” she said.

Hanson said the additional 25 acres of habitat retained within a quarter mile – approximately 400 meters – is too far away for a bird that historically won’t travel more than 150 meters at a time in unsheltered forest for fear of becoming someone else’s dinner.

Hanson said the Forest Service took the same approach – unsuccessfully – with a post-fire logging project in the neighboring El Dorado National Forest, leaving uncut three 40- to 50-acre patches of black-backed woodpecker habitat after the 2004 Freds fire near Kyburz, Calif.

“They tested this exact theory before and it didn’t work,” he said. “No one has been able to find woodpeckers near any of those patches since then.”

Heck said the agency is leaving intact about 1,168 acres of burned forest for the woodpeckers and other wildlife – approximately 43 percent of the area charred to varying degrees over more than 3,000 acres.

But Fazio said that less than 800 acres of that 1,168 is considered suitable for the black-backed woodpeckers, which highly dependent on the most intensely burned forest habitat for the beetle larvae they peck from the bark.

Heck said she couldn’t comment directly on that claim because it’s part of the ongoing litigation. She said the district court has denied the group’s request for an injunction blocking the logging “citing the project’s benefits to the public interest.”


Note from Sharon:
It seems to me that with the same $ to pay lawyers, folks could have bought a number of acres in the Sierra to be managed or not to their own specifications. Not to speak of all the feds (including judges) we’re paying, and the paper and ink we’re using to deal with it. Are we really talking about 160 acres here, or am I missing something?

More on Angora Fire, Chad Hanson and Woodpeckers

by


Here’s a link, there are many as it is AP. Thanks to Terry Seyden for this link.

Group wants Forest Service to delay Lake Tahoe logging around rare woodpecker chicks
By Scott Sonner, Associated Press

ENO, Nev. (AP) — Rare woodpecker chicks in burned forest stands at Lake Tahoe won’t survive if the U.S. Forest Service proceeds with a contentious post-fire logging project, according to conservationists pressing the agency to postpone cutting around the trees until after the nesting season in August.
The John Muir Project is asking for the delay while awaiting a ruling on an appeal to the 9th U.S. Circuit aimed at blocking what’s left of the salvage logging operation where the Angora Fire five years ago burned more than 3,000 acres and 250 homes on the edge of South Lake Tahoe, Calif.
Chad Hanson, the group’s executive director, documented black-backed woodpecker chicks this week in at least one nest in the cavity of a standing dead tree at the project site and suspects there are more.
Forest Service officials said Thursday they were reviewing the matter. Lawyers for the agency indicated to the critics earlier this week the plans could not be changed.
Hanson’s group and others recently petitioned the Interior Department for Endangered Species Act protection for the black-backed woodpecker in the Sierra Nevada, eastern Cascades of Oregon and Black Hills of South Dakota and Wyoming.
The petition is the first seeking protection of a species tied to post-fire habitat. It says the woodpecker has survived for millions of years by eating beetle larvae in burned trees — 13,000 larvae annually — but is threatened by dramatic reductions in habitat resulting from fire suppression and post-fire logging.
At least 300 acres of partially burned and standing dead trees remain uncut in the Angora project area that calls for logging up to 1,500 acres — a total area of more than 2 square miles on national forest land on the west edge of town.
Hanson said the logging had moved within a few hundred yards of the actual nest tree where he identified a mother black-backed woodpecker feeding chicks on Memorial Day, accompanied by a photographer for The Associated Press.
Agency officials told the group normal procedures dictate any documented nest tree itself be spared but no additional protection currently is planned at the project in the works since early 2009.
Hanson, a wildlife ecologist at the University of California, Davis who has been challenging logging projects in the Sierra for more than a decade with mixed success, said a bare minimum buffer of at least 60 acres is needed.
With less, he said even if the chicks’ parents don’t abandon the nest they won’t have a big enough foraging territory to keep the young fed. He said the chicks won’t be able to fly for weeks and logging already is up against the 60-acre core.
“There are some other unlogged areas they could fly to as long as the nest core area was protected, but if that’s gone, the chicks would just starve to death,” said Rachel Fazio, a lawyer for the group who argued their case last May 14 before a three-judge panel at the federal appellate court in San Francisco.
Fazio said it is ironic that the Forest Service and the Tahoe Institute for Natural Science are co-hosting the third annual Lake Tahoe Bird Festival on Saturday at the Taylor Creek Visitor Center just a few miles from the woodpeckers’ nest.
“We confirmed the nest tree and the birds were there on Monday but I don’t know if they’ll be there next Monday,” she told AP. “It’s one of the rarest birds in the Sierra Nevada. We can’t have logging activities which basically kill off the next generation. It seems like this should be a no-brainer.”
Forest Service spokeswoman Cheva Heck said Thursday they still were examining potential alternatives but had no immediate response to the request for delay.
“As managers of public lands, we have the responsibility of balancing multiple priorities. We are still researching each of our options before deciding the most effective way to proceed,” Heck said in an e-mail to AP.
Fazio notified Justice Department lawyers representing the Forest Service in the 9th Circuit case on May 24 that they had spotted two pairs of black-backed woodpeckers in an area slated for logging. She said additional observations would be necessary to confirm nesting but requested in the meantime that USFS delay operations in the area until nesting season is over.
Justice Department lawyers told Fazio in an e-mail May 25 the agency’s normal practice is to protect nest trees but it would not be possible to protect 60 acres around nest trees without undermining the project’s goals, including forest restoration and public safety.
Fazio repeated the request May 28 along with photos of the nest and mother she hoped would prompt the agency to “reconsider its decision to not protect this nesting pair and their chicks.” She said on Thursday she understood the photos had been forwarded to Forest Service biologists but she had received no additional response.
It’s not clear if the 9th Circuit will rule by August on the appeal seeking to overturn a U.S. district court ruling in Sacramento denying the John Muir Project’s request for an injunction to block the logging. The group says the agency’s environmental assessment of the project flies in the face of the latest, best scientific research.

COMMENTARY: It’s time to judge forest policy by its result, not by its intent- Rural Americans suffer while the Northwest Forest Plan fails to save owls

by

Thanks to Bob Zybach for this one.. an op-ed in the Register Guard here.

COMMENTARY: It’s time to judge forest policy by its result, not by its intent
Rural Americans suffer while the Northwest Forest Plan fails to save owls

Published: (Sunday, May 27, 2012 04:25AM) Midnight, May 27

By Rob DeHarpport

For The Register-Guard

Failed federal policies implemented by unelected agencies such as the U.S. Forest Service and the Bureau of Land Management during the past 30 to 40 years remind me of a quote from the late economist Milton Friedman: “One of the great mistakes is to judge policies and programs by their intentions rather than their results.”

The Northwest Forest Plan enacted by President Clinton in 1994 may have had good intentions, but it has failed catastrophically.

According to Forest Service records, the volume of timber harvested on Forest Service lands declined from a peak in 1987 of 12.7 billion board feet to 4.8 billion board feet in 1994. That harvest further declined to 2.4 billion board feet in 2011. When the Northwest Forest Plan was adopted in 1994, harvest levels already had dropped by nearly two-thirds — and today are merely 19 percent of the peak harvest level of 1987.

Pacific Northwest forests in the spotted owl zone grow anywhere from 500 to 1,000 board feet per acre per year. The Northwest Forest Plan encompasses 23 million acres. Growth on those acres has been at least 16 billion board feet per year. During the past 18 years, the annual harvest has been only 3 percent of growth.

The resulting build-up of biomass in Northwest forests has led to catastrophic fires burning millions of acres. Spotted owl populations have crashed by 60 percent or more. The Northwest Forest Plan has failed to save owls and instead has caused the incineration of their habitat.

The Pacific Northwest is the premier timber-growing region in the world. Yet today, America is importing 40 percent of its softwoods from Canada.

Does this make any sense? We are in a prolonged period of high unemployment in America — and especially in Oregon, Washington and Northern California. Poverty in rural areas of the Northwest continues to fester.

More than 25 percent of rural Oregon families are on food stamps.

In Oakridge, 80 percent of our public school students qualify for free lunches based on family income.

The Oakridge School District now enrolls slightly more than 500 students, down from a high of nearly 1,200 just 30 years ago.

At least 44 businesses from the Oakridge-Westfir area have closed their doors since the late 1970s.

CEO Peter Pope of the shuttered Pope & Talbot mill in Oakridge said, “The spotted owl issue destroyed any chance to keep the Oakridge mill going.” Pope explained that a failed effort to save the species was the “death blow” to Oakridge.

These failed policies continue today. President Clinton promised that, “We must never forget the human element and local economies.” Guess what? Rural timber towns and their residents have been forgotten.

Local Forest Service officials are held hostage by bureaucrats in Washington, D.C., and the policies they have created. Increased local control and stewardship is the logical answer, yet this solution is unattainable in the current top-down bureaucratic structure.