[Congressional Record Volume 142, Number 135 (Thursday, September 26, 1996)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page E1707]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
AN ACT TO SAVE AMERICA'S FORESTS
______
HON. JOHN BRYANT
of texas
in the house of representatives
Wednesday, September 25, 1996
Mr. BRYANT of Texas. Mr. Speaker, for years I have sought to protect
native biodiversity in our forests by ending clearcutting and other
forms of even-age logging, and allowing only selection management of
Federal forest lands where logging is permitted. Since the 101st
Congress, I have sponsored forest biodiversity legislation, and over
the years, support for my legislation has grown steadily. In the 103d
Congress, 107 Representatives cosponsored my bill, and 142 voted for a
version of it as a floor amendment.
Scientists, however, tell us that banning clearcutting alone is not
enough to guarantee the protection of forest biodiversity on our public
lands. It is clear that core areas of pristine forests must be left
unlogged altogether, and that these wellsprings of nature should be
surrounded by areas where only the most environmentally responsible
logging is permitted. In order to direct our forest management agencies
to follow these scientific recommendations to protect core areas of
biodiversity, I am adding a new title to my bill which will prohibit
logging in three categories of Federal forest lands: Northwest ancient
forests, roadless areas, and designated special areas.
By adding these new provisions, I believe that my legislation now
represents the most complete solution to the deforestation crisis
facing our public lands. With this in mind, I have retitled this
measure the act to save America's forests.
The Forest Service and other Federal agencies are primarily using the
logging techniques of clearcutting and other forms of even-age
forestry, despite overwhelming evidence that selection management--
cutting individual trees, leaving the canopy and undergrowth relatively
undisturbed--is more cost-efficient and is more ecologically sound.
Selection logging is more labor intensive, and therefore creates more
jobs for timber workers. It also avoids the high up-front costs of site
preparation and replanting required by even-age timber management.
The result of selection logging is a permanent, sustainable supply of
high quality timber, and the protection of native biodiversity in the
forests. This contrasts with clearcutting's indiscriminate destruction
of huge stands of trees, leaving only shrubs and bare ground, leading
to erosion, the demineralization of the soil, and allowing the creation
of artificial tree farms and extinction of the original native forest
in its wake. Wherever we allow logging to occur on our Federal forests,
only the selection logging technique should be permitted.
if current plans are followed, the remaining native biodiversity in
the approximately 60 million acres available for commercial logging on
Federal land will be eliminated and each of those acres transformed
into monoculture timber plantations within the next 15 to 20 years.
The legacy of the Forest Service and other Federal agencies'
unrestrained use of commercial logging based on even-age logging
techniques has left our Federal forests devastated, and has brought
countless plant and animal species to the brink of extinction.
The new logging prohibitions contained in my bill are a necessary
response to the extraordinarily destructive antienvironmental laws
passed by this 104th Congress, especially the timber salvage rider to
the fiscal year 1995 rescissions legislation. Under this salvage rider,
environmental protection has been suspended. Many northwest ancient
forests with trees up to 1,000 years old are being logged, and
pristine, roadless, and perfectly healthy forests are now fraudulently
being logged as salvage. The salvage rider targeted for clearcutting
the very forests that scientists tell us are most urgently in need of
protection.
As long as northwest ancient forests and roadless areas remain in the
timber base of the Forest Service, and other Federal agencies, these
irreplaceable areas are perpetually at risk of being logged and
destroyed. It is time to make these magnificent remnants of America's
original untouched forests permanently off-limits to logging,
protecting them forever from the devastation of any future timber
salvage rider, or similarly destructive legislation. My new bill would
achieve this.
In the development of a plan for the northwest ancient forests,
Forest Service experts and other Federal scientists mapped the ancient
forests of the region. These scientists determined no logging should be
allowed in many of these ancient forest areas in order to give the
ancient forests and their dependent species the highest possibility of
survival and recovery. My bill prohibits commercial logging in these
northwest ancient forests.
The bill also prohibits commercial logging in roadless areas. Federal
roadless areas contain many of the largest unfragmented forests in
America and are important reservoirs of our Nation's remaining native
biodiversity. I have used the Forest Service's definition of roadless
areas in my revised legislation.
My bill also identifies certain Federal forests, call special areas,
which may not be roadless areas or northwest ancient forests, but are
deserving of protection from commercial logging because of important
ecological reasons. Many of these areas also have important cultural,
scenic, or recreational qualities, which deserve as much protection as
trees and wildlife.
Passage of this legislation will usher in a new era of forest
management on our Federal lands, with long-term ecological integrity as
the guiding principle.
The public supports environmental protection as never before, and
opinion polls express the public's demand that Congress prevent the
permanent loss of our Nation's native forests.
I invite every Member to join me in seeking this badly needed forest
reform.
____________________