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Let
Park Service manage Giant Sequoia NM!  At
long last the U.S. Forest Service has put forth its revised options
for managing Giant Sequoia National Monument.The problem is the Forest Service still doesn't get it. Once again the agency is threatening to log extensively within the monument, one of California's most treasured landscapes. Alas the six alternatives the agency has come up with – including especially its preferred “Alternative B” – fall far short of ideal. “Alternative B” focuses on fuels reduction in the monument, and the chief management tools used would be prescribed burns (intentionally set fires), mechanical treatments (including tree cutting), and managed wildfire (unplanned natural ignitions). The recently released Draft Environmental Impact Statement covering proposed amendments to the Giant Sequoia National Monument Management Plan continues to promote a failed logging agenda. Some of the proposed alternatives call for more tree removal than was occurring prior to the monument's designation. Such logging would impact not just the giant sequoia old-growth forest but also threatened and endangered species including Pacific fisher, California spotted owl and others barely clinging to life in the southern Sierra. A return to the bad old days of thinly disguised commercial logging could strike the final blow to their viability. After considering all the options presented by the Forest Service, Forests Forever and other groups think the agency has too much invested in timber harvesting to adequately manage a monument of such, well, monumental character. The best option, therefore, is one the agency didn’t propose: to turn management of the monument over to the National Park Service. Sequoia National Park, adjacent to the monument, already provides a good example of how the forest should be managed. The park is successfully restoring its giant sequoia ecosystem through the careful use of prescribed burns and conservative small-tree thinning. Over several decades, the Park Service has made considerable progress in restoring a natural fire cycle to the forest without logging. That same careful stewardship should be applied inside the monument. That’s why the Forests Forever, the Sierra Club and others are calling for the transfer of the monument’s management to the National Park Service. For ten years the Forest Service has failed to deliver an adequate plan – despite being ordered to come up with one by President William Jefferson Clinton in 2000 when he used his authority under the Antiquities Act to establish the monument. By that act Clinton protected some 328,000 acres of Sierra Nevada forestland, including 33 sequoia groves. The Clinton Proclamation required the Forest Service to come up with a monument management plan with clear restrictions on logging. It expressly prohibited tree removal from the monument unless absolutely necessary and scientifically justified for ecosystem restoration and maintenance or public safety. But the plan the Forest Service proffered in 2004 outraged conservationists. The agency had proposed logging more large trees in the monument than they were allowed to in the surrounding forest – up to 10 million board feet a year. In early 2005 environmental groups challenged the management plan’s adequacy. The plan would have allowed the logging of up to 30-inch-diameter trees (including sequoias), supposedly to prevent catastrophic fires, and trees of any size, supposedly to protect public safety. Yet the Forest Service’s own scientists have found that logging large, fire-resistant trees like those in the monument does little to prevent catastrophic wildfire. Prescribed fires and careful thinning of small trees and underbrush – especially near communities – have proven to be much more effective at preventing wildfires. In 2006 Federal District Court Judge Charles Breyer rejected the Forest Service’s 2004 plan as “incomprehensible.” He ordered a new plan to be devised in accordance with the presidential proclamation and in compliance with the National Environmental Policy Act. Yet the Forest Service’s latest draft environmental impact statement essentially restates the very plan Breyer rejected. In the new version, the agency’s preferred “Option B” allows for heavy logging within the monument, chiefly in the name of fire prevention and public safety. Environmental groups including Forests Forever, Sequoia ForestKeeper and the Sierra Club believe relying on the Forest Service to protect the monument goes against the agency’s grain. In a well-managed monument, controlled fire should be used as the preferred method of ecosystem restoration and fuel reduction. Priority should be given to the protection and restoration of healthy habitats for sensitive wildlife species, including fisher, martens, owls, and goshawks. Historical recreation should be allowed, but recreation should be secondary to habitat restoration. Mechanical thinning (chopping out brush and small trees) for fuel reduction should be focused in areas directly adjacent to structures, powerlines and the like. And salvage logging should be expressly prohibited. Ultimately, keeping the monument in care of the Forest Service will damage this national treasure. The best course would be to transfer Giant Sequoia National Monument into the care of the gentler hands of the National Park Service. TAKE ACTION: Please take a moment to send a letter to your U.S. representative and senators, asking them to transfer the Giant Sequoia National Monument into the care of the National Park Service. Let them know you’ve considered the alternatives, and find the best option to be the one not considered by the Forest Service. ###
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FORESTS FOREVER San
Francisco |