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55 °F Forecast | Road Cams Sunday, May 9, 2004 Today's News | Classifieds | Autos | Homes | Jobs | Tempo | Health | Community | Home Delivery SECTIONS Home Page Local News Sports Business Obituaries Life Opinion - Politics AP News Weather Classified Archives Site Map EXTRA Newspaper in Education Personals Movie Times TV Times E The People CLASSIFIEDS Find a Car Find a Home Find a Job Find a Rental Place an ad eSouthernOregon Automotive Communities Entertainment Publications Recreation Calendar CUSTOMER SERVICE Frequent Questions Advertising Information Home Delivery Employment Contact Us Media Kit Network Affiliate Email Story to a Friend April 4, 2004 Forest plan came to life after years of environmental battles By PAUL FATTIG Mail Tribune The 1994 Northwest Forest Plan was basically a peace offering born out of war. After a decade-long battle in the woods and in the courts involving environmental activists, loggers and federal land management agencies, most were weary of the combat. The setting for the compromise came in 1991 when federal District Judge William Dwyer in Seattle issued a court injunction to protect the northern spotted owl in a lawsuit filed by environmentalists. The owl had been listed under the federal Endangered Species Act. The injunction halted logging on federal lands containing northern spotted owl habitat, covering a huge swath of western portions of Oregon and Washington, as well as the northwestern portion of California. Following the 1993 forest conference in Portland, Dwyer gave the Clinton administration until April 14, 1994, to submit a final plan that would meet federal environmental laws. Advertisement Clinton’s forest plan was intended to remove the injunction while balancing the demand for timber from those public lands with the need to protect northern spotted owl habitat, which included hundreds of species of flora and fauna. The plan designed an environmental management program for 24.5 million acres of federal forestlands throughout the range of the spotted owl and reduced logging in Northwest forests by about 80 percent from levels of the 1980s. It had reached about 5 billion board feet in the owl’s range each year by the late 1980s. Although the plan originally set a rough goal of providing an annual harvest of 1.2 billion board feet, that figure has been adjusted to 805 million per year. Of that, 601 million would be harvested on national forests while the remaining 204 million would come from BLM districts, according to the agencies. In reality, perhaps a third of that amount is being cut each year. The current allowable combined annual cut on the Rogue River and Siskiyou national forests is 26.9 million board feet of "green" timber and 15 million board feet of salvage from fire- killed trees. On the BLM’s Medford District, the yearly cut is now 57 million board feet. In comparison, the Medford District cut had climbed to about 250 million board feet in the late 1980s. But supporters say focusing on how much timber is harvested portrays an incomplete picture of the plan. They depict it as a model for science-based forest management, using a landscape approach to maintain the health of an entire ecological region. There are approximately 8 million acres of late-successional and old-growth forest that provide the habitats for the species that inhabit the northern spotted owl range. During the next 50 years, under the assumptions of the plan for harvest, forest development and fire, officials estimate that there will be a net increase of 2.7 million acres of late- successional and old growth forest habitat for those species. Late-successional and old-growth forest habitats are increasing at a rate 2.5 times that which would be lost through fire and harvest, according to the agencies. Mail Tribune Home Local News | Sports | Business | Obituaries | Life Opinion - Politics | AP News | Archives | Site Map E Southern Oregon | Classified Copyright © 1997-2004 Mail Tribune. All rights reserved. Privacy Policy | Terms & Conditions Website Feedback ADVERTISERS A D V E R T I S E R S RESOURCES Oregon Road Conditions & Cams SPECIAL SECTIONS Auto Finder Job Finder Home Finder Joy Magazine Homelife Magazine Tempo Readers' Choice Real Estate Showcase Since We Asked Food for Thought Wellness Connection Outdoor Journal Moving to Southern Oregon? Volunteer Opportunities Prime Times