Blame Bush aides for logging delay.

Byline: GUEST VIEWPOINT By Dominick DellaSala For The Register-Guard

In his July 13 guest viewpoint, Sen. Gordon Smith correctly asserts that the controversy surrounding the 2002 Biscuit Fire in Southwestern Oregon threatens the recovery of one of the most scenic, unspoiled and ecologically valuable forests in America. But Smith incorrectly blames the controversy on the important checks and balances that help keep management of our national forests grounded in sound science and informed decision-making.

Here's a quick background: A year after the fire started, the Forest Service was ready to move ahead with logging about 90 million board feet of timber, all of it on lands slated primarily for timber production. The conservation community and many scientists, while recognizing that post-fire logging has no ecological benefits, accepted the plan. It would have sent logs to local mills and stayed out of the most sensitive and ecologically valuable lands.

But then the Forest Service changed direction. The change came in the wake of a bogus timber industry report that completely ignored environmental protections and suggested that more than 2 billion board feet could be logged - enough to fill more than 100,000 logging trucks. The move was largely seen as a response to meddling by political appointees of the Bush administration.

The Forest Service eventually settled on a figure of 372 million board feet, which is still more than 20 times the typical annual volume of logging on the Siskiyou National Forest and represents the largest timber sale on federal lands in recent times. More than 70 percent of the logging would come from old-growth reserves that exist to protect fish and wildlife habitat, and from roadless areas that represent our last unspoiled forests, which are vital to the region's wild salmon runs.

Opponents had no choice but to challenge such an overreaching logging plan. The challenge is scientifically justified. Post-fire logging and related activities nearly always damage recovery. Fire is part of the natural cycle in the dry forests of the Siskiyou region. Over thousands of years, fire has helped shape these forests into some of the most biologically rich forests on the planet. Much like the Yellowstone fires of 1988, the Biscuit area is recovering from fire with remarkable speed and resiliency.

The largest burned, dead trees, the targets of logging, are the building blocks for new forests. These burned forests are rich in birds and other wildlife, and are the rarest forests in the Pacific Northwest. Forests that have been logged and replanted after fires lack the diverse wildlife and plants of naturally recovered forests. They also are more vulnerable to future fires. Densely packed small trees in logged and replanted forests often "blow up" in fires.

The blame for logging delays in the Biscuit area lies squarely on the shoulders of the Bush administration, which moved the goalposts nearly a year after the fire and proposed a controversial logging plan in areas the Forest Service had already agreed to stay out of.

True post-fire restoration means staying out of roadless areas and old-growth reserves and focusing on restorative actions elsewhere. This means putting people to work thinning overgrown tree plantations and removing small trees and brush close to communities vulnerable to wildfire. Commercially valuable logs can then be produced as a byproduct of restoration and sent to nearby mills. Much work is also needed restoring watersheds damaged by fire suppression activities.

These are the kind of actions the conservation community supports, and where common ground exists with the Forest Service. Had Washington stayed out of the way, restoration would be happening and the controversy would be minimal.

Unfortunately, the Bush administration chose controversy over collaboration, logging roadless areas and old-growth reserves over community protection and restoration, and politics over sound science.

It's too late to turn the clock back now. The Forest Service should start over and embrace a more reasonable approach to forest management that strikes a balance between economics and responsible stewardship of our shared natural heritage. For its part, Congress should make use of the best science in reducing fire risk where it is needed most and avoid controversial logging projects in places where Nature knows best.

Dominick DellaSala, a forest ecologist in Ashland, is director of the World Wildlife Fund's Klamath-Siskiyou Program (www.world wildlife.org).