Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: WEDNESDAY, January 8, 1992 TAG: 9201080317
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: A8 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE:
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
DRAFT PLAN
IT MAY be another year before the sawdust settles and a final plan is approved. But, as outlined in a long-awaited draft proposal unveiled last week, the thrust of management plans for the 1.1 million-acre George Washington National Forest would well serve the public interest.Logging interests are not happy with the proposal, understandably. It would reduce acreage set aside for timber production to less than half of what is currently allowed. It would dramatically reduce clear-cutting - the practice of chopping down every tree on a site.
Clear-cutting would be limited to 300 acres a year - down from about 2,500 acres now and a sharp reduction from the 4,555 acres that would have been allowed under a greatly contested 1986 plan. In effect, clear-cutting would become a harvesting method of last resort, prohibited unless it was vital for new growth.
Environmentalists aren't completely happy with the plan, either. But after complaining for years that George Washington and other national forests were being ravaged by logging and clear-cutting, they seem to have gotten the point across:
These are public lands, intended for preservation based on their biological, sociological and aesthetic value. They exist to serve the public - by providing recreational opportunities that can't be found in cement-and-glass jungles, and by serving as a refuge for a diversity of environmentally sensitive life forms.
The national forests also have a role to play in the maintenance of fertile soil and water - and for the provision of mineral resources and high-quality lumber. This, certainly, is important for continuing economic development.
But the timber industry does not have first call on this land, as it seems to believe - and, in fact, was encouraged to believe by federal forest overseers for too long. This is not land owned by, say, a paper company - where clear-cutting is often a reasonable and responsible means of harvesting wood. National forests aren't solely to be exploited by special interests; they're to be shared for a variety of uses.
The U. S. Forest Service recently sponsored in Roanoke a national conference on the theme of "New Perspectives," basically emphasizing management strategies to sustain balance and equity for all those with stakes in the national forests. The draft plan for the George Washington, most of which is in Virginia, outlines reasonable steps toward achieving that goal.
It would, for instance, designate additional acreage within the forest as wilderness areas, which cannot be disturbed by man. But it would also lease acreage for natural gas and oil exploration.
The draft plan brings to a climax a complex legal tug of war between timber interests and conservationists that has been going on since the late 1970s - when the National Forest Management Act mandated that each of America's national forests prepare a long-range management plan.
It is not the end of the issue. Timber interests are gearing up to oppose the draft plan's restrictions during a three-month public-comment process.
In part because of the mountainous terrain of the George Washington, much of the timber harvested there is being sold below government costs - at a loss of about $1 million a year for the forest's timbering program. This problem is not substantially addressed by the draft plan, and it should be - if not by the Forest Service, with a new below-cost timber policy expected soon, then by the Congress. (Rep. Jim Olin has sponsored legislation on the issue.)
In any case, the George Washington's future has been in limbo too long - in part because of too many special interests that can't see the forest for the trees. More compromising among these interests, and broader recognition of the national forest's special role, may be necessary before a final plan for the George Washington's management is produced. But it's definitely time to get on with it. The draft released last week is definitely pointing in the right direction.