From: ECONEWS via Jym Dyer <jym@mica.berkeley.edu>
Subject: NEWS: "Timber Industry Writes Own Rules"
Followup-To: talk.environment,ca.environment
Originator: rich@pencil.cs.missouri.edu
Keywords: environment forest
Organization: The Naughty Peahen Party Line
Distribution: na
Date: Tue, 29 Dec 1992 06:37:25 GMT

[From EcoNet ecotopia.news Conference]

================================================================
=> From: nec@igc.apc.org
=> Date: 12:11 pm  Nov 16, 1992
 
Timber Industry Writes Own Rules 
 
by Andy Alm 
 
Environmentalists say the state Board of Forestry caved in to
timber industry pressure last month when it approved broad new
forest practice rules.
 
The board's own attorney was not there, but the first two rows
in the audience were occupied by a squadron of timber company
lawyers who made ongoing unsolicited remarks and comments,
according to Mendocino County Forest Advisory Committee member
Meca Wawona.
 
"It was the classic case of the industry regulating itself,"
she said.
 
In the works for more than a year, the rules were intended to
address old-growth and wildlife protection, assure sustained
yield and limit clearcutting.  The board was under a court-
ordered timeline to make sure rules governing logging on private
land satisfied the Forest Practices Act and provided protection
equivalent to the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA).
 
  Whose Rules?
 
Yet environmental activists who observed the board's
deliberations said the final changes and process served the
interests of the timber industry rather than protecting the
environment.
 
The old-growth, sensitive watersheds, siliviculture and
sustained-yield rules packages are full of examples of how the
industry's influence took the teeth out of the regulations.
 
Even the term "old growth" was eliminated from the old-growth
package, replaced with "late successional forest stands" to
allow forests that have old-growth-like characteristics to be
used as surrogates in place of protecting remnant virgin stands.
 
The rules "no longer reflect any hint of compromise with the
environmental community," said Sierra Club volunteer Kathy
Bailey.  'While clearcut size would be limited to at most
40 acres under the new rules, that is a far cry from the
"five-to-ten-acre clearcut limits put forward by environmental
organizations. Even the definition of "selection cut" was
changed to eliminate a minimum size standard for remaining
trees to be counted, defeating the notion that selection cutting
should maintain the age and size characteristics of the forest
stand, Wawona said.
 
  Objection Sustained 
 
References to the "productive potential" of timberland were
stricken from the sustained yield rules, leaving landowners
to define sustained yield on their own -- even if that means
a sustained yield of 30-year-old trees. Wawona noted that this
is a clear shift from the Forest Practices Act's mandate of
maintaining "maximum production of high-quality timber."
 
"These rules attempt to re-define the Forest Practices Act,"
she said.
 
While the new rules for the first time allow designation of
watersheds as "sensitive" to further logging, the process for
nominating sensitive watersheds was made so difficult that even
the Department of Fish and Game's representative said it is
unlikely that the agency will have the resources to put even
the most damaged watersheds on the list.
 
Bailey noted that simple changes in wording created huge
loopholes in the final rules packages.  For example, the rules
require protection of wildlife species over a "substantial"
portion of a forest, but the terms "species" and "substantial"
are not defined, leaving a lot of room for interpretation.
 
Wawona noted that any substantial references to standards or
goals had the phrase "where feasible" inserted, leaving the
California Department of Forestry with the task of making
economic arguments, even though it is not privy to timber
companies' economic information.
 
The Board of Forestry must adopt findings to justify the new
rules, and has the matter on its December 1 and 2 agenda.  From
there, the rules must go to the state Office of Administrative
Law for a review of their enforceability and consistency with
state law.  Environmental organizations are already preparing
comments urging OAL to reject the packages.
 
The Redwood Coast Watersheds Association's lawsuit challenging
the Board of Forestry's regulations remains a wild card in the
process.  Filed in May, 1991, final arguments in the suit were
heard in September.  The decision on whether the new rules
adequately fulfill Forest Practices Act and CEQA requirements
is now in the hands of San Francisco Superior Court Judge Stuart
Pollock.
 
(From ECONEWS, Newsletter of the Northcoast Environmental
Center, November 1992. Write 879 9th St., Arcata, CA 95521,
or e-mail nec@igc.apc.org, for a free copy.)

Newsgroups: misc.activism.progressive