Oregon Forester Leads Panel Timber Industry Critical Of Choice For Law Review Board
An Oregon forester whose research helped prompt logging cutbacks in the Northwest was named Friday to lead a scientific panel reviewing U.S. forest-management laws.
The selection of Oregon State University professor Norm Johnson and others to the 13-member panel drew immediate criticism from timber industry leaders, who said most of their nominations were overlooked by Agriculture Secretary Dan Glickman.
“I’m disappointed. We felt we had nominated some very, very sound and reasonable and well-credentialed scientists and it doesn’t look like our recommendations were given a fair shake,” said Chris West, vice president of the Northwest Forestry Association in Portland.
West said only one of the members announced Friday had been backed by his trade group - University of Washington forest ecology professor James Kent Agee.
Two other Northwesterners also were on the list: Robert Beschta, a forest hydrology professor at Oregon State University; and Linda Howell Hardesty, a range management expert at Washington State University.
Another member named Friday, Barry Noon of Colorado State University, helped draft a ground-breaking strategy in 1990 to protect the northern spotted owl with Jack Ward Thomas, who later served as Forest Service chief.
Johnson served with Thomas and others on a team that became known as the “Gang of Four” in 1992 when it provided Congress with a wide range of management strategies for the Pacific Northwest. Their research showed significant reductions in logging were necessary to ensure threatened fish and wildlife would not go extinct.
He also was a member of the Forest Ecosystem Management Assessment Team that provided the underpinnings for President Clinton’s Northwest forest plan in 1993, which projected annual logging on national forests in Oregon, Washington and Northern California at only one-fourth the level of the 1980s.
Glickman said the team would begin meeting Dec. 19 in Chicago to consider changes in the laws protecting fish, wildlife and water quality on national forests.
West said the naming of the team is just the latest development in a continuing effort by the administration to postpone action on forest management reforms.
Mike Francis, national forests director for The Wilderness Society, said he was encouraged by the selections, “Let the first draft be by the people who do the science, then later we can talk public policy.”
xxxx Forest management panel members WASHINGTON Norm Johnson, Oregon State University forestry professor, will chair a panel of scientists reviewing U.S. forest-management laws. Other members of the 13-member team: James Kent Agee, professor of forest ecology, University of Washington. Robert L. Beschta, professor of forest hydrology, Oregon State University. Virginia House Dale, scientist, Lockheed Martin Energy Research, Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Oak Ridge, Tenn. Linda Howell Hardesty, associate professor, Department of Natural Resources Science, Washington State University. James Nathan Long, professor, Department of Forest Resources, Utah State University. Larry A. Nielsen, professor and director, School of Forest Resources, Pennsylvania State University. Barry R. Noon, associate professor, Department of Fishery and Wildlife Biology, Colorado State University. Roger Andrew Sedjo, senior fellow and director of Forest Economic and Policy Program, Resources for the Future, Washington, D.C. Margaret A. Shannon, associate professor, Department of Public Administration and Center for Environmental Policy and Administration, Syracuse University. Ronald Trosper, professor and director, Native American Forestry Program, Northern Arizona University. Charles F. Wilkinson, professor of law, University of Colorado School of Law. Julia M. Wondolleck, assistant professor, School of Natural Resources and the Environment, University of Michigan.