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Re: Re: E-M:/ fieger mouth
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Enviro-Mich message from Murphwild1@aol.com
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Vikki,
Looks like we are on the same campaign. We at Northwoods Wilderness Recovery,
included Michigan's Old M-64 logging operation and Trap Hills in the America's
Forest Heritage at Risk report. That was the easy part. Getting those areas
protected is another story. Of course there are other areas in Michigan worthy
of this protection.
Would you like to help protect Michigan Forests?
md
Defenders of Wildlife - Earthjustice Legal Defense Fund - emediacy -
National Audubon Society - The Wilderness Society - National Resources
Defense Council - National Environmental Trust - U.S. Public Interest
Research Group - Greater Yellowstone Coalition - Idaho Conservation
League - Kettle Range Conservation Group - Southern Appalachian Forest
Coalition - South East Alaska Coalition - Southern Environmental Law
Center - Oregon Natural Resources Council - Southwest Forest Alliance -
Wildlands CPR
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[ Editorial memo, December 1998 | Background Information, December 1998
| News Release, Nov. 18 | Letter to V.P. Gore]
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Editorial memo, December 1998
(mailed with a gift box containing wood chips and test tube of dirty
water)
HERITAGE FORESTS CAMPAIGN
Happy Holidays from the Timber Corporations! If you're reading this,
you've opened the present that lobbyists for politically powerful timber
corporations have for us and our descendants this holiday
season--shredded trees and dirty water, in place of our last unprotected
scenic wilderness.
Our Heritage Forests are being reduced to this: Timber corporations,
with the approval of the U.S. Forest Service, carve clearcuts into
unprotected wild places deep inside America's National Forests. And
badly eroded logging roads wash hundrews of tons of sediment downstream.
You are holding an example of the results.
Big Image (135K)
WILDERNESS DESTROYED: Clearcut in Cove-Mallard Roadless Area, Idaho.
Photo credit: Mark Alan Wilson/PICTURE TOMORROW.
Big Image (131K)
ERODED LOGGING ROADS, Plumas National Forest, California.
Photo credit: Copyright Jenny Hager/ALPINE IMAGES/All rights reserved.
Big Image (106K)
CLEARCUT, Tahoe National Forest, California.
Photo credit: Copyright Jenny Hager/ALPINE IMAGES/All rights reserved.
Alerting the public. Americans deserve to know what is going on, whether
in the National Forest nearest their homes or in spectacular faraway
places they hope to take their grandchildren someday. Barely 4 percent
of our original forests remain in the Lower 48 states. They are sources
of some of our cleanest drinking water and some of our most important
fish and wildlife habitat. They are a haven for the human spirit and a
wellspring from which future wilderness protection efforts will rise.
Conservationists have given their protection the highest priority. We
believe the future of our last scenic wilderness makes a good subject
for an editorial or feature story. And time is running out for these
last wild places.
Today, most Americans believe that our 155 National Forests are
protected sanctuaries. Yet 52% of the acreage has already been clearcut
or mined or drilled, and is crisscrossed with more than 373,000 miles of
roads, enough to circle the Earth 14 times. (That's just the official
roads.)
Another 18% is protected as wilderness, but much of that is high and
rocky, not forested.
The Heritage Forests Campaign works with dozens of local and national
environmental groups whose aim is to protect the remaining 30% of our
National Forest acreage that is still roadless wilderness, but also
unprotected from the timber, mining, and oil corporations. Their
bulldozers are now lining up to cut more roads through this pristine
wilderness.
President Clinton, Vice President Gore, and the current National Forest
chief, Mike Dombeck, have promised a new day for forest
protection--based on science, not politics. But after months of delay,
the Forest Service is on the verge of delivering a moratorium on
roadbuilding in only a fraction of the affected areas, for just 18
months, while plans are drawn up to build more roads through the
wilderness for the benefit of the timber corporations. Left out of the
moratorium altogether are over 15 million acres, most in the heavily
logged yet ecologically important Pacific Northwest and Alaska. And
that's just one of the loopholes.
The U.S. Forest Service must protect wilderness permanently. The
18-month interim policy is now expected to commence in early 1999 (more
than a year after it was proposed). During the following 18 months, the
U.S. Forest Service proposes simply to study how to build roads better,
how to pay for them, and how to remove or upgrade a few of them. At
present, the Forest Service is considering no permanent protection for
our last scenic wilderness as part of its final policy. When the interim
policy is finally announced, public comments on the final policy will be
accepted for a period of 30 or 60 days.
A background paper with more details is available below. Or, visit the
Heritage Forests Campaign web site at www.ourforests.com and see how
citizens can make their views known by sending a free post card to the
Administration.
In addition, dramatic color photos are being collected that show
wilderness areas still slated for roadbuilding, and similar areas in
National Forests near you that have been decimated by clearcuts and
heavily eroded logging roads. Those reprinted here, taken in the early
1990s, show how destructive these practices can be.
Unless a great deal of attention is focused on this threat to Americans'
last unprotected scenic wilderness, a final policy that is insufficient
could turn out to be disastrous for America's future generations.
Don't let more of your forest wilderness turn into wood chips and dirty
water. We lose more than 260 acres a day of America's Heritage Forests.
For the latest information and before-and-after photos of National
Forests near you, please contact Peter Kelley of National Environmental
Trust at 202-887-8831, or Ken Rait, leader of the Heritage Forests
Campaign, at 503-283-6343, Ext. 210.
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