Conehead Policy Will Hurt Forests

The Sierra Club, the nation’s oldest and most respected environmental organization, marginalized itself this week with a call for a logging ban on federal land.

A total ban might be fashionable with urban environmentalists and the wine-and-brie set of congested San Francisco, the Sierra Club’s home, but it’s an extremist position in the Pacific Northwest - the environmental equivalent of a clearcut.

Northwesterners understand the devastating effect of such shortsightedness. We’ve seen mill after mill close for lack of a dependable timber supply. We’ve seen loggers forced to swap their chainsaws for unemployment or low-paying tourism jobs.

The new policy, approved by a 2-to-1 vote of Sierra Club members nationwide, is such a radical departure from the organization’s moderate beginning and formative years that practical environmentalists oppose it. Even Dave Foreman, founder of militant Earth First! and a Sierra Club board member, is against the ban. He said: “I get quite frustrated with true believers who hold onto some idealistic notion of no compromise.”

Compromise desperately is needed in the timber debate. We need a national timber policy that encourages sustainable harvests and keeps people working while protecting the environment. Those aren’t exclusive goals.

Our insatiable dependency on timber and wood products isn’t going to go away simply because the Sierra Club has decided to stonewall further debate. Every U.S. citizen annually uses the equivalent of a 100-foot log, 18 inches in diameter - on paper products alone. Wood makes up more than half the weight of manufactured products we produce yearly.

If the Sierra Club’s new timber policy became law, it could prompt timber firms to log every toothpick possible off private land. And it would force us to increase timber imports from countries with little or no environmental rules, devastating their forests. So much for thinking globally and acting locally.

In recent years, the Sierra Club and its allies have limited federal harvests with endless appeals of timber sales. By calling for a ban, the Sierra Club has dropped any pretense of moderation and fairness.

, DataTimes The following fields overflowed: CREDIT = D.F. Oliveria/For the editorial board