Editor’s Note: Normally, this space is reserved for a description of the Evergreen Foundation, its mission and funding sources. But in light of the horrific controversy surrounding the Forest Service’s Biscuit Fire Record of Decision we are yielding the space to Tom Partin, President of the American Forest Resource Council, an association that represents the interests of most of the West’s smaller, familyowned sawmilling companies.

After much discussion the American Forest Resource Council Board of Directors has decided to sue the federal government in the hope of forcing it to do what is both legally and morally right on lands savaged by the 2002 Biscuit Fire.

The Forest Service’s failure to assess the environmental impacts of not restoring more than 90 percent of the area destroyed by this wildfire is inexcusable. So too was their back-door decision to create a new wilderness area without allowing for public comment on the proposal.

Obviously, whatever timber issalvaged—if any—will help family owned sawmills in southern Oregon.Steve Swanson, president of the Swanson Group spoke for all of us recently when he said, “These blackened trees will replace green ones cutsomewhere else to meet demand, sosalvage makes both environmental and economical common sense.”

But the larger issue for AFRC members, and the people that live, work  and recreate in southern Oregon, is our desire to see a new forest growing in place of the one the Biscuit Fire destroyed. And this fire destroyed much more than a productive forest and a playland. It also destroyed more than a hundred thousand acres of legally designated critical habitat for spotted owls, marbled murrelets, salmon, steelhead and trout.

The science here is very clear. Burned areas that are not salvaged and replanted will become brush fields, possibly for hundreds of years. Shade intolerant Douglas-fir, the dominant tree species on the Siskiyou National Forest, cannot re-sprout naturally in brush. Moreover, these brush fields will only add fuel to the dead-tree fuel load left behind by the fire. Minus a serious restoration effort, much of the area that burned will probably burn again, further damaging critical habitat and watersheds important to both aquatic life and communities.

Ultimately, Congress will settle this issue. But we rather like the idea that, at least momentarily, we have replaced the “sue & obstruct” strategy radical environmentalists favor with our own “sue and accomplish” strategy. At the very least, we hope to inject some common sense in this debate. Should we fail the real loser will be a very special southern Oregon forest that so-called environmentalists claim to care about.
- Tom Partin