Sierra Nevada Forest Plan Amendment

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PORTERVILLE, CA, June 25, 2003 - As professional foresters working for
the USDA Forest Service on the Sequoia National Forest, we want what
is best for our public lands. The newly released Draft Supplemental
Environmental Impact Statement (Draft SEIS) refines the Sierra Nevada
Forest Plan Amendment “Framework,” by increasing the
efficiency and effectiveness of forest management. This release begins
a 90-day public comment period on the document designed to manage
eleven national forests in the Sierra Nevada. The changes proposed in
the Draft SEIS will help manage forest landscapes to reduce the large
catastrophic fires that destroy the forests, wildlife habitat, and
communities we are trying to protect.

Unless forest conditions change, historic fire data suggest that the
projected losses of old forest and wildlife habitat will average
68,000 acres per year throughout the Sierra Nevada over the next 10
years. At that rate under the current direction, old forest habitat
will burn up faster than it can be replaced. Reducing the risk of
such catastrophic wildfire means strategically removing the excess
accumulation of trees and brush that are most prone to burn.

Based on a yearlong review of the original Framework decision, the
Draft SEIS retains the Framework’s goal of maintaining and
restoring a healthy forest landscape with large trees, to provide
habitat for a variety of owls and wildlife. While the goal is
maintained, the means of achieving the goal have changed. The
original Framework decision was a cautious, short-term approach with
overly detailed and prescriptive standards and guidelines that focused
on what was taken from the forest.
-more-
In contrast, the draft SEIS now displays a fuel treatment and
vegetation management strategy across the 11 million acres of the
Sierra Nevada emphasizing the desired conditions we want to create in
the forest.

The preferred alternative in the Draft SEIS recognizes that
economically feasible fuel reduction projects must be placed around
mountain communities. The goal is to modify fire behavior to reduce
the higher-intensity fires that can destroy both human communities and
wildlife habitat. The recent McNally Fire was the largest wildfire in
our forest’s history, and is just the type of catastrophic fire
that the Draft SEIS seeks to prevent.

We are asking you, the public, to review and comment on the Draft
SEIS. We look forward to a constructive public dialogue. The 90-day
public comment period ends on September 12, 2003. All of your
comments will be incorporated into a new decision in late October of
this year.

Please take time to send written comment to: Sierra Nevada Forest Plan
Amendment, P.O. Box 221090, Salt Lake City, UT 84122-1090, or e-mail
your comments to . The Draft SEIS is available on
the worldwide web at www.fs.fed.us/r5/snfpa or available in hard copy
at all Sequoia National Forest offices.

John Exline, Dave Freeland Del Pengilly
Hume Lake District Ranger Greenhorn District Ranger Tule River/Hot
Springs
District Ranger

Dave Freeland, John Exline and Del Pengilly are Forest Service
District Rangers located on the Sequoia National Forest/Giant Sequoia
National Monument.

Comment by poster: Actually, the bigwigs on the Sequoia want this to
get the widest possible exposure to let the public know where they
stand and to counter efforts by the vocal minority to slant the
issues.

Larry Federal eco-forestry rules!