Letters.

KUDOS

editor: Yesterday afternoon I enjoyed reading the Autumn issue of American Forests. The magazine has emerged as an interesting, attractive, and useful publication. As a lifetime member I'm delighted!

Also, it appears that AMERICAN FORESTS has grown in size and innovation under Deborah Gangloff's leadership. Keep up the good work.

Rich Patterson

Cedar Rapids. Iowa

NAME-CALLING

editor: I was amused, and also saddened, by the letter from Joe Monahan (Letters, Summer 2000). I enjoyed Jane Braxton Little's article about preservation in the Cedar River watershed ("Flowing from Forests to Faucets," Spring 2000), and I have seen enough tree stumps in Washington state to know that its old motto "The Evergreen State" is far less appropriate now than it once was. Given 1,000 years without "forest management," perhaps some of it can recover. But we won't live to see it.

Yet Mr. Monahan categorizes those altruists who seek to preserve and restore a bit of nature, for no personal financial gain, as "political" and "special interest" groups. Then he refers to those who prefer to line their pockets with profits from the residues of Washington's once-great forests as "professionals" who practice "successful management" and who now must rely upon "natural processes" (for example, arson?) to undue the "mistakes" of those who tried to save a scrap of something for posterity.

Regardless of which side you support, have you noticed lately that in any discussion, the speaker always claims to be the professional, while the spoken-of is dismissed as a political special interest?

Guy Stern berg

Petersburg. Illinois

NATURE RECYCLES

editor: All vegetation (trees, farm crops, flowers, etc.) are composed almost completely of carbon dioxide ([CO.sup.2]) and water in roughly a 45 percent to 55 percent ratio, respectively, with trace amounts of other materials, such as minerals and nitrogen.

When controlled tests were conducted varying the amount of [CO.sup.2] over and above the normal atmospheric levels (double, triple, and quadruple), the vegetative growth rate increased dramatically. With the elevated growth came huge increases in the normal benefits of vegetative growth--food and fiber, summer cooling, flood relief, air and water purification, and much more.

The key to this bonanza is increased [CO.sup.2], not less. With more [CO.sup.2] we can reduce our summer cooling costs, harvest more food for the hungry, provide more building materials, breathe purer air and drink purer water, create more oxygen, enjoy better health, and more.

It's time we recognize carbon dioxide for its prestigious position as the cornerstone of nature's most perfect recycling system--vegetative metabolism--the foundation of all life on our planet.

Donald E. Dvorsky

Cedar Rapids, Iowa

MISREPRESENTED?

editor: I find myself strongly opposed to two positions advocated by AMERICAN FORESTS' board, The first is your support for President Clinton's roadless area proposal (Washington Outlook, Autumn 2000).

There are many reasons to oppose the roadless area proposal, not the least of which is that it violates the National Forest Management Act. NFMA identifies the forest planning process as the tool to allocate different lands to different management prescriptions. Clinton's top-down proposal is a slap in the face to that direction.

I also oppose your support for CARA (H.R. 7010). This is a bloated program to spend $45 billion on an assortment of projects over the next 15 years, $6.7 billion of which will be used to buy private land and move it into public ownership. This is a slap in the face to people in the West, where 60 percent to 80 percent of the states already are in public ownership. Even at $500 per acre that is 13.5 million acres (the equivalent of about seven national forests) lost to local governments. Many rural communities will not survive this level of loss. I don't know whom the board represents, but it certainly does not represent me in these decisions.

Jim Gerber

St. Anthony, Idaho 

Gerry Gray responds: Thank you for your letter concerning our statements on the Forest Service's roadless area proposal and the Conservation and Reinvestment Act (CARA). It's clear you have strong feelings and perspectives on these proposals. As I wrote, AMERICAN FORESTS' policy statements are based on our Ecosystem Restoration and Maintenance agenda. This agenda was endorsed by our board in December 1999 and printed in our Spring 2000 magazine. As I stated in the Autumn 2000 Washington Outlook, we support the Administration's efforts to further protect the ecological services provided by roadless areas. If the proposal is implemented with local involvement and is more closely linked to the agency's new national forest planning rules, we believe it could protect roadless areas and help build community capacity to work collaboratively with federal agencies on national forest stewardship.

With respect to CARA, many questions remain about how it would be implemented, but we do not believe it is the threat to private landowners and local interests that you describe. Senator Frank Murkowski (R-Alaska), who sponsored the bill, stressed that the $450 million in funding for federal land acquisition was "only [slightly] above the average appropriation for the past five years, and only [accounts] for 15 percent of the total funding for the bill." We see CARA as a significant long-term funding investment in conservation programs. We have worked to ensure that the proposal includes funding for programs that build community capacity to help protect and maintain ecosystem health and community well-being.

A THANK YOU

editor: The nation's tree farmers, woodland owners, and those in forestry- related jobs who have worked hard to maintain a working sustainable forest can pause for a moment to be thanked for their successful efforts in convincing the Environmental Protection Agency to withdraw forestry activities from their proposed Total Maximum Daily Load (TMDL) rule changes.

EPA's TMDL proposed rule change would have reversed the 27-year determination under the Clean Water Act and changed forest activities from a non-point source to a point source.

This is a victory for the hardworking land stewards of this country, but we must continue to be vigilant and continue to work together. I believe we should seize the moment as stakeholders in this important issue and offer to work with Senator Robert Smith (R-NH), chairman of the powerful committee on Environment and Public Works and the EPA, on deciding how we can help improve our water quality.

Thomas N. Thomson

Orford. New Hampshire