Timber companies influenced forest study

Atlanta, Georgia, Feb. 28— As the official public comment period closes today for the Southern Forest Resource Assessment, new information obtained via the Freedom of Information Act documents that timber industry representatives, including International Paper (IP), had inside influence as official peer reviewers of the study prior to its public release. IP, the biggest timber corporation in the world, produces more paper in the southeast than any other company and is a leading supplier to retail giants such as Staples.

When the study was released in November, the US Forest Service (USFS) effectively diverted attention away from numerous findings in the report that are damaging to big timber companies by singling out sprawl as the biggest problem, stated Danna Smith of the Dogwood Alliance.

“Of course we agree that sprawl poses a threat to the South’s forests, but we now question whether the USFS made a calculated move to downplay the impacts of the timber industry,” Smith added.

Two years ago, the USFS initiated the comprehensive study in response to growing public concern about the ecological and economic impacts of an expanding paper industry across the South. The latest cost estimate of the study ranges between three quarters to $1 million according to the US Forest Service. The timber industry is now using the USFS study in a paid ad campaign pointing the finger at sprawl and promoting themselves as good forest stewards.

The study clearly documents that softwoods are presently being cut faster than they are growing and that hardwoods are projected to follow a similar fate, stated Rodney Robbins, a North Carolina saw mill owner.

In addition to evidence of unsustainable harvest rates, the study also projects that single species industrial tree plantations that are intensively managed with chemical fertilizers and herbicides will make up one in every four acres of Southern forests by the year 2040. The report concludes that pine plantations generally provide poor wildlife habitat and that the long-term ecological implications of such wide-scale industrial tree plantations are uncertain. Communities, landowners, religious leaders, and sportsmen are demanding answers and checks and balances for an industry they say is out of control.

The fact that the USFS actively recruited corporations with such a blatant conflict of interest to officially influence the study should raise serious public concern, stated Reverend Gary Phillips, a United Methodist minister from Pittsboro, North Carolina. The US government is supposed to protect the public from irresponsible corporate actions; instead, it appears the USFS has attempted to shield timber companies from public accountability.

Key findings from the Southern Forest Resource Assessment:

There was an 800% increase in the use of chemical fertilizers in pine plantations from 1990 to 1999. Nearly 10 million acres were fertilized in the South since 1969. This area is estimated to exceed the sum of forest fertilization in the rest of the world taken together.

The area of natural forest across the South declined from 356 million acres in colonial times to 182 million acres today.

Half of the forested wetlands of the South (35 million acres) have been lost.

Natural pine forests declined from 72 million acres in 1953 to 34 million acres in 1999. Pine plantations have been displacing natural forests for the past 50 years and now occupy 32 million acres (15 percent) of the current Southern forest. Pine plantations will increase by 60 percent to 54 million acres by 2040 to comprise one-quarter of all Southern forests (an area the size of North and South Carolina combined).

Fourteen forest communities (such as the longleaf pine ecosystem) across the South have declined to occupy only 2% of their original range.

There are more threatened forested ecosystems in the South than any other region of the country. The South produces more wood products that any other country in the world and it is projected to be the dominant producing region for many decades to come. Removals of softwoods have surpassed growth by about 10 percent.

Removals of hardwoods will exceed growth by 2025 across the region.

The annual acreage cut will increase to 8 million acres between 1999 and 2040. At this increased rate, 270 million acres will be cut between 1999 and 2040, an area that is almost one-third greater than the forested land.

Source: The Dogwood Alliance

ENVIRO BRIEFS

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Military seeks exemptions from environmental rules
At a rally and press conference outside the US Capitol on Feb. 28 organized by the Military Toxics Project (MTP), 50 grassroots leaders from around the US demanded that an upcoming hearing on military compliance with environmental laws include community and state witnesses. The March 14 hearing will be the forth Congressional hearing in the past year about the impacts of urban sprawl and environmental regulation on military training. No representatives of communities or states impacted by past contamination and ongoing pollution from military sites have been allowed to testify at previous hearings. (ENS)

Top EPA rules enforcer resigns in disgust
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He also complained specifically about what he saw as attempts to weaken the Clean Air act regulations on coal-fired power plants. “It’s hard to know what’s worse,” he wrote of a review of a key Act provision, “the endless delay or the repeated leaks by energy industry lobbyists of draft rule changes that would undermine lawsuits already filed.”

“At their heart,” he wrote, the review “proposals would turn narrow exemptions into larger loop holes that would allow old ‘grandfathered’ plants to be continually rebuilt [an emissions increase] without modern pollution controls.” (MSNBC)