umm.. the so-called "Healthy Forests Initiative"

* Does NOT effectively protect homes from wildfire. According to a Forest Service analysis, 92% of the land presenting a risk to communities is non-federal land, yet HR 1904 ONLY focuses on federal land. Furthermore, according to Forest Service experts the most effective way to protect a home from wildfire is to focus on the home and its immediate surroundings within 200 feet.

* Limits public participation. While the Bush Administration cries "analysis paralysis," claiming that lawsuits from environmental groups are preventing the Forest Service from reducing fuels, an October 2003 report from the General Accounting Office - the non-partisan, investigative arm of Congress - found that of 818 Forest Service fuel reduction projects, 97% proceeded without litigation. This is the forth-consecutive GAO study to contain similar findings.

* Does NOT ensure protections for ancient, old-growth forests and provides no protections for roadless wildlands. The bill specifically allows logging of ancient, old-growth forests in the case of of "epidemics of disease or insects" and in cases of windthrow, blowdown and ice storms. The bill also does not protect roadless wildlands from commercial logging under the guise of "fuel reduction."

* Undermines the very "heart of NEPA". Under the compromise bill, the Forest Service is not required to consider any alternative other than the agency's proposed action if the project is located within 1 1/2 mile of a community. The courts have called this consideration of alternatives the very "heart of NEPA."

(from the Wild-Rockies news)

i've heard they really, really can't wait to get their hands on the tongass. sigh...

is it is mostly unusable timber. It is mostly scrub trees at over three thousand feet elevation. There is some good timber but not as much as they would have you believe. What they want is the Old Growth along the shoreline. That is where ninty percent of the wildlife is. Also it takes three times as long for regrowth in Southeast Alaska as it does in say Oregon or Washington. Logging the Tongass would not be nice.

Don't burn nearly so fast, even slowing down fast, hot forest fires... And that they are more resistant to disease and bug infestations.

And actually, a study on the Sierra Nevadas showed that forest fires in areas where logging has occured, burn more intensely because of more-vulnerable undergrowth that thrives after the big trees are taken out.

Does his healthy forest initiative say anything about controlled burning? I hear that smaller, controlled fires would reduce the flammable brush... Course, I don't live in California; my home is not at risk for burning down in a forest fire...

Does that mean Federal wilderness areas??

"old growth" forests are not the culprit.

Mis-managed forests with disease and lots of dead trees and deadfall are.

Bush is opening up the final, total logging and deforestation of the country.