US Forest Service fiddles while Alaska at risk, greens say
Date: 20-May-02
Country: USA
The Tongass, which spans some 17 million acres of forest and islands along the coast of southeast Alaska, is home to several species of wildlife and fish. Local communities, mining and timber interests also have pushed to develop the forest's resources.
The U.S. Forest Service, a division of the U.S. Department of Agriculture, decided to take "no action," weighing that option among eight plans, the agency said in a draft proposal.
The seven other proposals would have selected between 723,000 and 9.5 million acres of the land as wilderness area.
Only about 7 million acres in the Tongass are now set aside as wilderness lands.
"It's not surprising," said Tom Waldo, an attorney with Earth Justice Legal Defense Fund. "It's a continuation of the trend we've seen with the Bush administration, which is catering to their cronies in the timber industry."
The Forest Service was ordered by a federal court in Alaska last year to evaluate and consider roadless areas in the Tongass after a 1997 plan failed to evaluate these regions as possible wilderness sites.
Wilderness lands, which are designated by Congress, ban construction and human habitation in order to preserve the area and protect local animals and resources.
The Forest Service said the decision was made "based on a significant collaborative effort to seek a balance for how to best protect and manage the Tongass National Forest."
The public has until August 17 to comment on the plan before the Forest Service begins to develop a final proposal.
The Bush administration has been widely criticized by green groups for catering to the interests of big businesses. Last year, the president chose to roll back a Clinton-era rule that would have restricted road building in forests that make up 60 million acres, or 2 percent of land in the United States.
The administration said it would move forward with the plan to ban new roads in forests, but also would modify the rule to allow local input so changes are made on a forest-by-forest basis.
Last year, U.S. District Judge Edward Lodge in Boise, Idaho, blocked the Bush administration from carrying out the Clinton ban on building roads in federal forests. Lodge called the administration's proposal to modify the rule a "Band Aid approach."
The case was appealed by environmental groups and is now before a federal appeals court in San Francisco.
