in the marble of your animals eyes
From a Washington Post article breaking down new rules and regs for our national forests:
"The new rules give economic activity equal priority with preserving the ecological health of the forests in making management decisions and in potentially liberalizing caps on how much timber can be taken from a forest."
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"The government will no longer require that its managers prepare an environmental impact analysis with each forest's management plan, or use numerical counts to ensure there are "viable populations" of fish and wildlife. The changes will reduce the number of required scientific reports and ask federal officials to focus on a forest's overall health, rather than the fate of individual species, when evaluating how best to protect local plants and animals. "
In all honesty, this comes as no suprise. This is what we expect from the current regime, right? Still, i went slack-jawwed as i read the article. Forests to be managed in the style of corporations, profit margins given equal footing with preservation? I am amazed that folks can actually believe this is a GOOD idea. Sadly, however, the real truth is that most folks don't even realize this is happening or are indifferent to it. Hasn't the Columbia River saga taught us anything?
New Mexico's Rep. Tom Udall (D) makes an interesting point:
"With Bush's anti-environmental forest policy, you can't blame him for trying to hide behind other news, but not even Scrooge would unveil these regulations," Udall said. "These regulations, being offered two days before Christmas, cut the public out of the forest planning process, will inspire many more lawsuits and provide less protection for wildlife. It's a radical overhaul of forest policy."
"The new rules give economic activity equal priority with preserving the ecological health of the forests in making management decisions and in potentially liberalizing caps on how much timber can be taken from a forest."
*** *** ***
"The government will no longer require that its managers prepare an environmental impact analysis with each forest's management plan, or use numerical counts to ensure there are "viable populations" of fish and wildlife. The changes will reduce the number of required scientific reports and ask federal officials to focus on a forest's overall health, rather than the fate of individual species, when evaluating how best to protect local plants and animals. "
In all honesty, this comes as no suprise. This is what we expect from the current regime, right? Still, i went slack-jawwed as i read the article. Forests to be managed in the style of corporations, profit margins given equal footing with preservation? I am amazed that folks can actually believe this is a GOOD idea. Sadly, however, the real truth is that most folks don't even realize this is happening or are indifferent to it. Hasn't the Columbia River saga taught us anything?
New Mexico's Rep. Tom Udall (D) makes an interesting point:
"With Bush's anti-environmental forest policy, you can't blame him for trying to hide behind other news, but not even Scrooge would unveil these regulations," Udall said. "These regulations, being offered two days before Christmas, cut the public out of the forest planning process, will inspire many more lawsuits and provide less protection for wildlife. It's a radical overhaul of forest policy."
posted by sqrl at 8:39 AM
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