LOOKING PAST THE SALVAGE RIDER, FORWARD TO POST-RIDER SALVAGE

by Timothy Ingalsbee, Ph.D.

For nearly a year and a half, certain mainstream environmental organizations could hardly look past the notorious Salvage Rider to strategize and mobilize public opposition to new timber sales coming ahead under the Northwest Forest Plan (NWFP). All the rage directed against the rogue Republican sponsors of the Salvage Rider has blinded certain mainstream environmental organizations from fully chastizing Clinton for his role first in signing the Rider, and then ordering the Forest Service and Bureau of Land Management to aggressively implement it. Indeed, a good argument could be made that Clinton secretly wished for the Salvage Rider in order to temporarily distract environmentalists while the NWFP was being readied for business. Like a bull charging at the red cape of the Rider, however, these environmentalists have been ignoring the man with the sword in his hands--President Clinton and his “Co-Option Nine” Northwest Forest Plan. The Salvage Rider has ended (for now), but environmentalists will soon discover how aweful ÒlawfulÓ logging will be under the rules and regulations of Òthe PresidentÕs Plan.Ó

Green, Black, and Brown Trees: All Stumps Are Gray

Unfortunately, both the corporate media and mainstream environmentalists are myopically obsessed with the logging of ÒgreenÓ trees, while failing to inform the public about the harm to native, old-growth ecosystems from logging Òblack and brownÓ trees. The media continually dwells on the reduction of “green” timber sales under the NWFP, using the historic (and illegal) overcut of the 1980s as the benchmark for comparison. The media fails to inform that fully half of the remaining old-growth on National Forests is vulnerable to logging since it was located in the Plan’s Matrix and Adaptive Management Areas where timber extraction is the prime directive. Compounding this lack of critical assessment, the media tends to tout the Clinton Administration’s line of designing timber sales according to an Òecosystems managementÓ philosophy.

Mainstream environmentalists rightly challenged the NWFP over its continuation of old-growth “green” timber sales, but they barely raised a fuss over the Plan’s prescriptions for salvage logging. During the Salvage Rider, mainstream environmentalists focused their media work on exposing the number of ÒgreenÓ timber sales being cut as Òsalvage,Ó while still failing to educate the public or challenge the Clinton Administration over the ecological and ethical affronts of logging “dead and dying” trees. The so-called Riparian and Late-Successional “Reserves” don’t save one stick of forest, for “black and brown” trees can be salvage logged anywhere, especially including the Reserves. Indeed, the NWFP is rife with salvage loopholes big enough to drive a Rider (sic) truck through! Now, environmentalists must look forward to a new regime of post-Rider salvage logging specifically mandated by the President’s Plan. Logging green, black, or brown trees makes no difference to the ecosystem: all stumps are gray it its eyes.

Logging the Reserves: Salvage Loopholes to Fear and Loathe

It is possible that given the amount and kind of ancient forest looting perpetrated under the Salvage Rider, the NWFP will be deemed illegal by Judge Dwyer. But environmentalists should not count on that kind of Òdivine intervention from aboveÓ again. Rather, the opposite assumption should be the prevailing mindset: the NWFP will be the law over the land for the duration of the Clinton Administration. Thus, it greatly behooves environmentalists to read up on the numerous salvage logging loopholes written into the Plan. In the section on Standards and Guidelines for the Riparian and Late-Successional Reserves, the document states that, “Salvage of dead trees is limited to stand-replacing disturbance events exceeding 10 acres.” [C-12] To say that salvage logging is “limited” to 10 acres, however, is truly a devious statement with sinister implications. Large-scale windstorms and wildfires are normal and natural ecosystem processes in CascadiaÕs native forests. Hence, the document is really declaring that there are practically NO limits to salvage logging inside (and especially outside) the so-called ÒReserves.Ó

Given the NWFP’s declared “open season” on salvage logging in Reserves, one can easily imagine timber-starved foresters praying for storms to come and sow the seeds of their future harvests. It is almost as if the agency has evolved into a kind of timber vulture, waiting ever so impatiently for trees to succumb to the elements before moving in for the feast. Some of the agencyÕs timber sale clientele, though, may not be so willing to wait patiently for Òacts of GodÓ to create salvage opportunities. Large-scale wildfire disturbances have increasingly abnormal causes in Cascadia, these days. Incidents of arson attacks against public forests have been steadily rising ever since the first Òspotted owlÓ restrictions on commercial logging. It does not take a rocket scientist to predict that arson attacks on Reserves will continue to increase as means of generating new salvage sales. The NWFP has given the prescription for arson fires: they must be a minimum of 10 acres in size in order to be salvageable. Essentially, then, all the scientific analysis and forest protection measures in the NWFP can be vetoed with the strike of an arsonist’s match.

Warner Creek: Sneak Preview of Option Nine Salvage Scams

The whole debacle of the now-defunct Warner Salvage Sale is most telling of the agency’s true intentions when forest reserves and Roadless Areas are burned by arsonists. Although the Clinton-Thomas administration inherited the Warner Creek arson-salvage scam from the Bush-Robertson regime, it stayed the course right on to the bitter end when, in the midst of angry protests by outraged environmentalists in every state in the union, Clinton was forced to withdraw the Warner Salvage Sale. The salvage loopholes in the NWFP, and the extreme efforts that Clinton’s Forest Service made to get the cut out of Warner Creek, though, clearly tell arsonists that their efforts will be rewarded. It is truly dangerous times ahead for CascadiaÕs ancient forests, and environmentalists should not be surprised if the Forest Service once again moves against Warner Creek as a salvage sale in full compliance with the PresidentÕs Plan.

In many ways it seems that the NWFP was drafted with Warner Creek clearly in mind, thinking ahead to get the cut out of so-called forest “reserves.” Prior to Clinton’s election and the creation of the NWFP, Warner Creek was established as a spotted owl Habitat Conservation Area (HCA) where further commercial logging was prohibited. After arsonists burned 9,000 acres of this HCA, however, the Forest Service embarked on an alleged “fire recovery” plan to salvage log the burned trees. Speaking with a forked tongue, the agency stated that even though spotted owl habitat depends on abundant large snags and downed logs, these same trees are also fire hazards that imperil spotted owl habitat. In this ÒCatch-22Ó situation, the agency then neatly defined spotted owl habitat ÒrecoveryÓ not as protection of old-growth from logging, as one might assume, but as protection from future fires. And the method it proposed to ÒprotectÓ owl habitat from future fires, not surprisingly, was to have logging companies remove the arson-burned old-growth trees before they could burn again. The NWFP replicates this same schizophrenic attitude towards forests and fires.

On the one hand, the NWFP acknowledges the important role that fire and other natural disturbances play in late-successional forest ecosystems, and recognizes the vital role that large dead and decaying trees play in old-growth forests. But on the other hand, the NWFP mandates that late-successional ecosystems should be “protected” from wildfire and other disturbances, and promotes salvage logging of dead and dying trees as the means of forest fire protection. The Plan’s salvage loophole clearly states that, “Some salvage that does not meet the preceding guidelines [of the NWFP] will be allowed when salvage is essential to reduce the risk of fire to Late-Successional forest conditions.” [C-15] Thus, the same twisted rationale developed in the Warner Creek fire recovery project has been replicated in the NWFP. All the restrictions on old-growth logging within Reserves are shelved if and when these same old-growth stands are deemed to be “fire hazards.”

The Regional Ecosystem Office: The “God Squad” of the President’s Plan

The question naturally arises: who decides if the forest is a fire hazard suitable for salvage logging? In this matter, the NWFP includes perhaps the most sinister of all salvage loopholes when it states that, “The Regional Ecosystem Office (REO) will continue to define where salvage is appropriate.Ó [p. 66] The REO is the moral equivalent (irony intended) of the ÒGod SquadÓ under the Endangered Species Act. The REO holds supreme bureaucratic power to authorize exemptions from any and all of the standards and guidelines in the NWFP. The REO is staffed by several unrepentent, unreformed Forest Service timber managers, and the hen guarding this fox house is Clinton’s political appointee, Tom Tuchman. To date, the REO has never rejected a request for exemptions from the NWFP in order to salvage log inside Reserves. Indeed, Tuchman and the REO authorized logging Warner Creek’s Late-successional and Riparian Reserves as “appropriate” under the NWFP. The actions of the REO indicate that it deems all salvage proposals for Reserves will be appropriate as long as they are presented as Òfire protectionÓ schemes for Òecosystem management.Ó The bottom line is that environmentalists should not count on the Clinton Administration to stop efforts by the Forest Service to salvage log within Roadless Areas and ÒReservesÓ because that is the letter if not the spirit of the PresidentÕs Plan.

What Is To Be Done?

Environmentalists have some serious self-education to do in order to learn about the vital ecological roles and habitat values of fires, snags, and logs. Rather than “sanitizing” the forest by removing these processes and structures, as the Forest Service and NWFP intends to do, proper ecological management would involve reintroducting these elements into the ecosystem wherever and whenever possible. There is not a single peer-reviewed published scientific paper that documents the benefits of salvage logging to native forest ecosystems--not one! Environmentalists must work furiously to discredit the very word, salvage, and expose what it really represents: timber Òsell-vage.Ó They need to communicate to the public and politicians, who have been long conditioned to fear forest fires and loathe dead or dying trees, that salvage logging is anti-ecological, uneconomical, and immoral. Given the inertia of a bureaucratic machine and a complicit corporate media all geared up for ÒsalvagingÓ the forest, this public education work will not be easy, but it is vitally necessary for the integrity and viability of Cascadia’s ancient forest ecosystem, and the restoration of native forests nationwide.

Environmentalists should also be working furiously to overturn the NWFP in the court of public opinion, if not a court of law. Mainstream environmental organizations such as the Wilderness Society, for example, that have already garnered big corporate Foundation grants to monitor the implementation of the NWFP (dubbed Òstump-countingÓ by critics) better change their strategy, soon. Not only is the NWFP fatally flawed with erroneous and untested management assumptions, but the salvage logging loopholes will certainly doom any efforts to protect old-growth dependent species or ancient forest ecosystems. Indeed, given the fact that over time, every tree made of wood will either burn or die of insects, disease, or old age, the NWFP really is a system of logging reserves masquerading as wildlife reserves. The NWFP is a sham conservation strategy bolstered by shameless salvage loopholes---there should be no illusions about ÒmonitoringÓ as a means of protecting the forest. Strategically, the best way to overturn the NWFP and close up any and all loopholes is to work for a ÒZero CutÓ policy ending all commercial logging on public lands. It is high time that the mainstream organizations catch up with the grassroots and support this sensible policy.

While some mainstream environmentalists may try to cheer themselves up with slogans like “Bounce Back from the Rider!”, the Forest Service and the timber industry are already moving ahead with post-Rider salvage. The truth is, the agency and industry no longer need the political baggage of another emergency-decree salvage rider in order to mandate lawless logging. Now, near-unrestricted salvage logging can proceed in an orderly, “lawful” manner under the directives of the NWFP and/or the exemptions of the Regional Ecosystem Office. Get out your Option Nine Forest Plans, read and weep, because the systematic demise of Cascadia’s spotted owl forest is all foretold in this document. Beware and be aware: a frenzy of salvage logging is coming ahead to CascadiaÕs ancient and native forests---all of it with the PresidentÕs approval, all of it according to plan.