Activists Attack Industry Friendly Forest Policies

WASHINGTON, DC, June 6, 2002 (ENS) - Environmental groups launched protests in Washington DC and Montana today to draw attention to the impacts of President George W. Bush's energy and environmental policies on national forest lands. The groups have targeted former timber industry lobbyist Mark Rey, the Department of Agriculture's under secretary for natural resources and environment.

More than 65 people showed up in Washington DC today to protest the Bush administration's forest policies. (Photo courtesy National Forest Protection Alliance)

The groups blame Rey, a former lobbyist for the timber industry, for many Bush administration policies that emphasize resource extraction over ecosystem protection. Today's protests in the nation's capitol and at Forest Service offices in western hotspots like Montana represent "a first shot across the bow" in a new battle to protect the nation's wild places, said Tom Weis, executive director of the National Forest Protection Alliance.

"With President Bush's 'Hatchet Man' in charge of the Forest Service, our forests have never been so endangered," Weis said. "This is a classic case of the fox guarding the henhouse. Mark Rey's agenda for logging, drilling and grazing our national forests stands in contrast to the views of the majority of Americans who want to see national forests protected and restored."

Environmental groups argue that the under the Bush administration and Mark Rey, the Forest Service is "systematically and subtly" weakening environmental protection standards designed to preserve and maintain the ecological integrity of public lands. Among the policy decisions and proposals that the groups say reveal the administration's pro-industry agenda are its refusal to implement the Clinton era Roadless Area Conservation Rule.

The Bush administration has repeatedly delayed the effective date of the rule, which would protect some 60 million roadless acres of national forests from logging, mining and other industrial activities. Critics argue that the administration has also deliberately offered weak arguments in defense of the rule during court challenges by the timber industry and the states of Alaska and Idaho.

Mark Rey, under secretary for natural resources and environment at the Department of Agriculture, was formerly a timber industry lobbyist. (Photo courtesy U.S. Department of Agriculture)

After the devastating wildfires of 2000, the Bush administration seized the opportunity to promote increased logging as a way to reduce wildfire risk, the groups say.

Most recently, Rey proposed creating so called charter forests, which would turn responsibility for managing certain federal lands over to local, state and corporate interests by creating private trusts that are mandated to turn a profit. The proposal was included in the Bush administration's fiscal year 2003 Forest Service budget.

Environmental groups say Rey's history with the timber industry explains his support for such industry friendly proposals. From 1976 to 1994, Rey served in a variety of positions promoting the timber industry through the American Forest and Paper Association, American Forest Resource Alliance, and National Forest Products Association.

Protesters used a megaphone to ensure that Agriculture Department officials would hear their message. (Photo courtesy National Forest Protection Alliance)

Today, Missoula's National Forest Protection Alliance - a coalition of 133 grassroots forest protection groups nationwide - held a noontime demonstration outside of Mark Rey's Washington, DC office. Early this morning, an activist group called Wild Rockies Earth First! (WREF!) began a vigil at the Forest Service's Region One Headquarters in Missoula, including a tree sit by volunteer Rebecca Smith.

"I'm here because the forests deserve better than deforestation and exploitation," said Smith. "Nature is not ours to destroy."

Smith is suspended on a platform in a tree next to the Region One Headquarters. The activists have vowed to maintain their vigil through Saturday.

"Those of us who care about public lands in Montana know Mark Rey well," noted Matthew Koehler with the Native Forest Network in Missoula. "Make no mistake: while the Bush Administration carefully greenwashes its anti-environmental image, Mark Rey and his friends in the logging, mining, oil and gas and motorized recreation industry are poised to exploit our national forests."

A fire in the Bitterroot National Forest in July 2000 prompted the Forest Service to propose so called salvage logging on thousands of acres as part of a forest restoration plan. (Photo courtesy U.S. Forest Service)

Last year, Representative Cynthia McKinney, a Georgia Democrat, introduced the National Forest Protection and Restoration Act, a bill to phase out commercial logging in all national forests and wildlife refuges, and on lands managed by the National Park Service and Bureau of Land Management - virtually all federal lands.

"This Administration's callous disregard for these natural treasures demonstrates precisely the need to permanently protect our national forests from commercial logging," McKinney said today.