says President Bush.
CRAWFORD, Texas — President Bush plans to announce a major policy shift toward logging in national forests Thursday, one that he contends will reduce the risks of wildfires but which also has some environmental groups howling.
Bush’s plan — to be unveiled at an southwestern Oregon fairground near the still-smoldering Squires fire — will make it easier for timber companies to get approval to cut wood in fire-prone national forests.
Several Western governors, and even some environmental groups, have been urging such changes, which they say are necessary to clear forests of decades-long buildups of highly flammable underbrush and dead trees.
“For the good of our economy, we need common-sense forest policy,” Bush said during a stop at Mount Rushmore last week. “We can and we must manage our forests. We must keep them disease-free. We must have reasonable forest policies so as to prevent fires, not encourage them.”
This year’s wildfires across the West have renewed the perennial debate between conservationists who oppose cutting in federal forests and logging interests who argue that underbrush and deadwood increase the risk of fire.
I don’t think conservation is letting forests grow unchecked so that they are prown to massive fires. I know that’s how nature would work without us, but after all we’re stewards of this planet. I don’t believe that means we should leave things totally alone. I think we have a responsibility to manage the growth and utilization of natural resources. Of course, national forests in this country are one thing – rain forests in other countries are a different matter altogether.