Dear HCN,
I was shocked to find
myself quoted as saying that environmentalists are “bayoneting the
wounded” in your piece on the Eagle Timber Sale (HCN, 9/24/01: The
timber sale that won’t die). These were not my words and I thought
that I had made that clear to the reporter. In retrospect, I regret
having even repeated the comment at a time when we need thoughtful
dialogue as well as to avoid inappropriately stereotyping
stakeholder groups.
In my view, the Northwest
Forest Plan represents a major advance in federal forest policy
regarding biodiversity and ecological sustainability. No
stakeholder group was provided with all that they wanted, but the
plan provided an excellent starting point for what was intended to
be an adaptive process. I think that most of the environmental
community initially did accept and commit to implementation of the
plan. The Salvage Rider of 1995 significantly altered attitudes and
strategies, including much expanded litigation as well as protest.
Much of this litigation and protest now appears focused on altering
a basic provision of the plan (harvest of late-successional forests
in the matrix), a valid political objective. Of course, as the plan
is reopened to political processes, all stakeholders will be moved
to pursue their agendas. I am personally concerned that the
scientific strategy that is at the core of the plan could be lost
in the process.
I was accurately represented in
your article as believing that there are much higher priorities
regionally, nationally and globally than finessing implementation
of the Northwest Forest Plan – at least for stakeholders whose
priorities really are maintaining forest biodiversity and
sustaining forest ecosystems. One of those is to encourage
ecologically more sensitive forestry practices in all managed
forests, a movement that has not received the level of support from
the environmental community that it deserves. Another is to
seriously confront the issue of forest pest and pathogen
introductions from other continents, which, in my view, represents
the greatest single threat, bar none, to the integrity of our
natural and managed forests and all of the related
biodiversity.
Finally, in my view, your article
did not accurately portray the findings of the Independent
Scientific Review on the Eagle Sale. I would suggest that your
readers access the full report at
www.fs.fed.us/r6/mthood/pubs.htm.
Jerry
F. Franklin
Seattle,
Washington
This article appeared in the print edition of the magazine with the headline Shocking inaccuracy.
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