THE WALL STREET JOURNAL / CALIFORNIA
Six years ago, the Clinton administration unveiled the Northwest
Timber Plan, a landmark compromise intended to preserve both jobs for
loggers and a fragile inhabitant of the trees they fell: the northern
spotted owl.
The plan covered 24.4 million acres in the three Pacific Coast
states, including six million acres in California's sparsely populated
northern third. Today, according to a U.S. Forest Service report issued
in April, the owl population -- now estimated at 8,000 pair -- is
declining at 3.9% a year. For the Forest Service and the timber industry, it's a clear sign
that the federal plan is working: The rate of decline is lower than it
was earlier in the decade.
But two environmental groups -- including the Pasadena-based John
Muir Project and the Native Forest Council in Eugene, Ore. -- think the
plan is failing. So much so that they have gone to Seattle federal
district court, where they've asked Judge William Dwyer to issue a
temporary injunction barring any further logging in the zone until more
research is done into the owl's disappearance.
Why? While the owls' decline rate has gone down, it's still four
times greater than the Clinton administration predicted it would be
under the compact -- 1% a year.
"The plan is not working," says Tim Hermack, executive director of
the Native Forest Council.
The timber industry is quick to argue otherwise. "We can't help but
question the need for a moratorium when the statistics suggest
otherwise," says Chris Nance, a spokesman for the California Forestry
Association in Sacramento. A moratorium "would clearly have an impact on
our profession as we know it."
The stakes certainly are high for the rugged -- and economically
distressed -- region that the owl shares with loggers. While statewide
unemployment in April averaged 5.5%, the timber-rich counties of
Humboldt and Trinity, for example, had a combined jobless rate of 7.9%,
according to the California Employment Development Department.
And, claims the Independent Forest Products Association, an industry
group in Beaverton, Ore., residents of Humboldt and Trinity counties
would lose $24 million in income if all logging on federal lands there
were halted.
The Forest Service has not officially responded to the legal
petition, and officials at the agency say they can't comment on pending
litigation. But more broadly, they say, environmentalists are missing
the good news: the report's conclusion that the threatened species is on
a path toward recovery.
"What we see now is that the rate of decline is dropping," says Rex
Holloway, a spokesman for the Forest Service's regional office in
Portland, Ore. "We cannot expect overnight results. This is a long-term
plan, and to make a difference, it is going to take some time."
Nevertheless, the owl's decline has been particularly pronounced in
California. Wildlife experts don't have exact figures for the drop, but
they suggest that differences between the owl's inland habitat in
California and its coastal nesting areas in Oregon and Washington are to
blame.
The "cold, wet springs of Northern California exacerbate the
pressures logging puts on the bird," says Alan Franklin, who teaches
wildlife population biology at Arcata's Humboldt State University and
studied the California owls up close for the Forest Service.
Mr. Franklin is quick to add that the accelerating decline of
California's spotted owl population is still unexplained and that the
trend could disappear in three years.
But that doesn't satisfy the owl's defenders, whose stunning victory
in Judge Dwyer's court eight years ago gave rise to the Northwest Timber
Plan.
In 1991, the judge found that the Forest Service had failed to
produce a plan to protect the northern spotted owl, which had been
listed as threatened in 1990 under the Endangered Species Act. The owl
lives in the top branches of mature fir trees; clear-cutting, the judge
found, had destroyed 90% of the bird's habitat, leading to steep
declines in the population.
Judge Dwyer enjoined all timber sales in the owl's region until the
agency adopted a management plan as required by the National
Environmental Policy Act. But the plan, issued in March 1992, failed to
assuage environmentalists. They contended that the Forest Service had
ignored a study by its own researchers showing that the owl population
was declining by 7.5% a year. The judge continued the logging ban until
further research was conducted.
The resulting reassessment led to the Northwest Forest Plan, which
settled the lawsuits before Judge Dwyer. It covered the 24.4 million
acres in the three states, and set aside some 10 million of them as
spotted-owl habitat that could never be logged.
Of the total acreage, 30% was already off-limits to logging because
it encompasses national parks, wilderness areas or scenic rivers. The
result: Timber harvests on the federal land were reduced to 20% of their
1980s levels.
In their new motion, the John Muir Project and the Native Forest
Council argue that Judge Dwyer should once again prohibit logging while
the Forest Service conducts yet another spotted-owl evaluation, which
the groups say is required because of the "significant new circumstances
or information" contained in the agency's recent spotted-owl report.
Mr. Nance of the California Forestry Association says that the
environmental movement may be missing the forest for the trees by
focusing solely on the owl -- and not on the overall state of the far
north's economy and ecology.
"We are one of the 10 largest employers in the state," says Mr.
Nance. But "aside from jobs, the number one concern of ours is the state
of our forests," he adds. "Three times more trees are dying than are
being harvested in our national forests."
But Chad Hanson, executive director of the John Muir Project, has
little sympathy for those who rely on the timber industry. "It's good
for those people to get away from the boom and bust of logging."
(See related letter: "THE WALL STREET JOURNAL / CALIFORNIA ---
Letters to the Editor: Helping the Timber Workers" -- WSJ CAJ June 16,
1999)
(See related letter: "THE WALL STREET JOURNAL / CALIFORNIA ---
Letters to the Editor: Owls and Biological Armageddon" -- WSJ CAJ July
28, 1999)
Economic Focus
Green Groups Ask for Halt
On Logging for Owls' Sake
By Rob Eure and Ryan Tate
Staff Reporters of The Wall Street Journal
06/09/1999
The Wall Street Journal
CA1
(Copyright (c) 1999, Dow Jones & Company, Inc.)
Copyright © 2000 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved.