From The Sunday Oregonian, Mar. 9, 2003, p A17 (Oregon & The West)

Support for forest-thinning steps up
Advertisements and rallies could be on the way as the timber industry
prepares to promote Bush's "healthy forests initiative"

By JEFF MAPES, The Oregonian
With the encouragement of the Bush administration, the timber
industry is quietly building a pubic-relations campaign to promote the
president's plan to reduce fire danger by thinning public forests.
Led by a veteran political consultant from the Portland area, the
campaign is looking at techniques ranging from advertising to
organizing rallies pushing the president's "healthy forests
initiative."
The Bush administration appointee heading the U.S. Forest Service and
a top aide to White House political chief Karl Rove met recently in
Portland with timber executives to discuss the campaign. It's yet
another sign of how closely the Bush administration is working with an
industry it regards as a key part of its support base.
"The Bush administration has told people in our industry, 'We need
your help,'" said Ray Wilkeson of the Oregon Forest Industries
Council, a Salem-based timber lobby group.
Bush announced his forest initiative in August in a Medford speech
after flying over the 500,000-acre Biscuit fire then raging in
Southern Oregon. A key part of the plan is allowing loggers to take
some marketable timber as a way to help pay for forest thinning.
Environmentalists criticize the initiative as a back-door way to
increase logging in national forests and say it won't do much to
reduce the fire risk.
But the initiative has become the president's chief public-lands
priority. He mentioned it during his State of the Union speech in
January and has talked frequently about how he works the reduce the
fuel load on forested parts of his Texas ranch.
"The fire season on the ground has ended ... but my personal fire
season continues because I'm concerned about the fire the president
put under my backside to get this initiative moving," joked Mark Rey,
the agriculture under-secretary in charge of the Forest Service. He's
a former timber industry lobbyist.
Rey and Barry Jackson, a top aide to Rove, spoke at a Feb. 14
gathering in Portland organized by political consultant Paul Phillips,
a former Republican legislator from Tigard.
Rey said he and Jackson spoke about the importance of the forest
initiative but did not stay for a discussion of how to put together a
public-relations campaign.
"That's up to them to decide how they can best be effective in
helping us," Rey said.
Bush administration officials have worked closely with the industry
since taking office. Several officials met privately with industry
executives in December 2001 at the Aurora headquarters of Columbia
Helicopter to talk about changes in forest management. And the
industry was a large contributor to Bush's election campaign in 2000.
Participants said the latest meeting attracted about 100 people from
a broad spectrum of timber-related industries, including
representatives from companies involved in firefighting.
Pledge forms were distributed urging companies to contribute a slice
of their sales in the West, up to a maximum of $275,000, to the
public-relations campaign.
Phillips said he didn't know how much money would be raised for the
campaign, but some participants said there was talk of a
multi-million-dollar effort.
Phillips, president of Pac/West Communications in Wilsonville, was
chosen by a coalition of timber-support groups to create the campaign.
He hired Tim Wigley, who had been executive director of the Oregon
Forest Industries Council, to help direct it.
Phillips said the effort would focus on "grass-roots mobilization" in
areas of the West where there's high concern about fire danger.
"It's smart for (the administration) to have a group at arm's length
and go out and do what they can't do," said Phillips. He added that
it's too early to tell the exact focus of his campaign.
However, it's clear that a key part of the debate involves how the
issue is framed.
Phillips said the catastrophic fires that swept the West last year
not only pose a risk to many communities but are also destroying
valuable wilderness.
"The Biscuit fire destroyed more habitat than we could ever bring on
line," he said.

Opponents see hidden agenda
Environmentalists, who have waged their own public-relations campaign
against the president's plan, argue that the administration is
primarily interested in getting more timber off public lands.
"They deserve high points for using euphemisms," said Bill Arthur,
head of the Sierra Club's Seattle office. "Healthy forest is just a
cute phrase for chain-saw health care."
Arthur said the administration should focus on protecting forest
zones around communities, and little could be done to fireproof an
entire forest. He also disputed the claim that the Biscuit fire would
prove to be an environmental disaster.
The Bush administration is already moving to change some regulations
to accommodate the president's initiative. And last month Congress
approved an amendment allowing the Forest Service to hire private
contractors to thin forests in exchange for keeping some marketable
timber.
Rey said the administration is looking at the comments gathered on
the proposed regulatory changes and considering what additional
legislation might be sent to Congress.

Comment by poster: I'm confused. How can timber harvest be good for
forests when there is no money for reforestation afterwards? (See
Bitterroot Reforestation, also posted to this NG today.)

Wait. This is a program from the great forester, G.W.B., riecht?

Unfortunately, forestry is more than cutting 30-foot tall scrub oak in
Texas. (Let me see...cut the oak so there is more food for cattle?).

At least the Bush administration and I can agree on one thing: the
best thing for US forests is to get the Shrubs out of the forest.
These Shrubs include 30-foot oaks in Texas or 30-foot wanna-be
politicians out of real forests.

Daniel B. Wheeler
www.oregonwhitetruffles.com