April 23, 2003 Contra Costa Times
Forest chief calls policy debate filled with diversions

By Mike Taugher
CONTRA COSTA TIMES


SAN FRANCISCO - The Bush administration's top forester said Tuesday
that many of the issues environmentalists raise are mere distractions
to the real problems facing 192 million acres of national forests.

Speaking at the Commonwealth Club, U.S. Forest Service chief Dale
Bosworth said rather than worrying about grazing, logging and
endangered species, more attention should be focused on fires, weeds
and off-road vehicles.

The Earth Day speech was the first time Bosworth outlined his case
that forest policy debate is filled with "great diversions," while
"great issues" receive insufficient attention.

But Bosworth, a former Concord resident, said it would not be the
last.

"I'm going to be talking about it a lot," Bosworth said. "This is as
good a place as any to start, and this is as good a day as any to
start - Earth Day."

Environmentalists were critical, saying that despite Bosworth's
statements, the Bush administration has continually sought to roll
back environmental protections throughout national forests.

They said this was particularly true in California, where
modifications of the Sierra Nevada Framework are likely to lead to
more tree-cutting to reduce fire danger.

"How do we tell what the agency is up to, by what they say on Earth
Day or what they're doing the rest of the year?" asked Warren Alford,
a spokesman for the Sierra Club.

Bosworth criticized environmentalists' actions and news coverage of
forest policies, saying they put too much emphasis on problems that
have been essentially solved.

Nationally, logging is down to about 2 billion board-feet a year,
one-sixth the volume of 20 years ago, while the forest service
eliminates 14 miles of forest roads for every mile of road that is
built, Bosworth said.

Yet high-profile controversies continue over plans to cut trees and
over the Bush administration's reluctance to support a Clinton-era
national roadless policy that would prevent road construction in
millions of acres of national forest.

For all the controversy, especially in the interior West, over cattle
grazing on public lands, Bosworth said further reductions could put
ranchers out of business, which in turn would lead them to subdivide
private land abutting national forests. He said that 85 percent of
grazed forest land is in "good condition" or is improving.

More attention should be paid to preserving private ranches around
forests, reducing fire danger, policing off-road vehicles and beating
back invasive species, including weeds, exotic forest diseases and
non-native animals that displace native species, he said.

All this, said some environmentalists, is just Bush administration
spin.

"It's fairly bold for this administration to come out on Earth Day and
talk about protecting national forests," said Daniel Smuts, a
spokesman for the Wilderness Society. "I think if anyone is trying to
divert public attention away from the health and protection of our
national forests, it is the forest service."

Comment from poster: In my book, Dale is right on the money, at least
from a forest management point of view. I also hope he will continue
to talk about forestry issues in the public eye and come out from
under Mark Rey's thumb. The Chief of the Forest Service should be out
in the public, defending good management. I'm still puzzled at why the
Bush Administration still wants to repeal the Roadless Policy. All
that fighting over wanting foresters to have "more flexibility" in
"managing" our designated Roadless Areas? Their protection is a
"non-issue" and they weren't in danger under the previous policy. To
me, Clinton used it as a political ploy, since it didn't outright ban
logging and mining.