As if we didn't already have enough to worry about, researchers at Los Alamos Laboratory in New Mexico are warning workers this week not to clear trees on certain parts of the property where nuclear testing took place more than 50 years ago.
The seemingly harmless trees, they fear, may be radioactive. Lab officials have fenced off the offending trees to prevent them from being cut--they don't want anyone using radioactive trees for firewood.
The rest of America's forests should be so lucky.
Even as Los Alamos spokespeople were announcing that they had essentially managed to create a grove of cancer-causing trees, the Bush administration was busy \streamlining"" national forest policy. The administration wants to seriously revise a rule prioritizing ecological sustainability over recreational or economic goals.
Currently regional managers of well over 100 national forests are required to consider environmental sustainability first and foremost in their management plans. Managers must conduct environment impact surveys when creating or modifying plans.
The Bush administration wants these inquiries into environmental impact to be optional and entirely at the discretion of regional managers. Spokespeople claim that this change would merely make the various ""components"" of sustainability ""all equally important.""
Under the proposed rule, while a manager could still conduct environmental impact studies if he wanted to, nothing would stop him from abandoning serious inquiry into environmental consequences altogether in order to pursue a plan with economic incentives. According to its supporters, the proposal could save a great deal of money.
And, of course, it could also make a great deal of money. The new rule would make it a lot easier for foresters to strike up major deals with the logging industry, for instance. Rather than having the bothersome accountability provided by the old rule, managers could declare that they didn't see any immediate reason to perform an environmental impact survey of the consequences of heavy logging of the forest.
Bush's proposal could be the worst thing to happen to America's forests since... well, since his last several proposals. Let's face it: When the Bush administration takes on environmental policy, generally the environment loses. And in this case, nearly everybody but the timber industry loses. By lessening the accountability of the forest managers, the proposal both opens the forests to misuse and further removes citizens from having a say in what happens to the forests.
The current rule is a good one, even if it does create more work for regional managers. It creates a line of accountability within the U.S. Forest Service, keeping regional managers in line with the values upon which the national forests were established. It acknowledges that the national forests are not being preserved as just a natural resource bank for corporations to exploit, but as an environmental legacy for future generations to learn from and enjoy.
Prioritizing ecological sustainability is exactly the way to assure that the national forests will live on. Ecological sustainability should be the primary focus, even the mandate of forestry managers because without it the other ""components of sustainability"" are null.
While some logging may be acceptable, and thinning of trees in dense areas even positive, the national forests do not exist to be logged. They exist as environmental spaces for us to enjoy and pass on, as spaces to manage rather than exploit. They are areas meant to be protected to a reasonable degree from practices that could destroy their essence and ecological balance.
The current rule assures this on at least a minimal level, but if it is revised in the manner the Bush administration hopes the radioactive groves at Los Alamos could very well earn the distinction of being some of the very last publicly owned forests truly protected from the logging industry.
