Subject: FW: SW BIODIVERSITY ALERT #21

Subject: SW BIODIVERSITY ALERT #21

* ************* Southwest Biodiversity Alert #20 *****************
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*            southwest center for biological diversity           *
*                      ksuckling@sw-center.org                   *
*             http://www.envirolink.org/orgs/sw-center           *
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1.  ARIZONA SENATORS TO HOLD HEARING ON FOREST HEALTH IN SOUTHWEST
    - SCIENTISTS WARN AGAINST SALVAGE MENTALITY AND LARGE-SCALE LOGGING
    - ARIZONA DAILY STAR WARNS AGAINST ANTI-ENVIRONMENTAL SENTORS

2.  MORE MEDIA COVERAGE OF OVERGRAZING  IMPACTS ON FOREST ECOSYSTEM
    HEALTH

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1.  ARIZONA SENATORS TO HOLD HEARING ON FOREST HEALTH IN SOUTHWEST
    - SCIENTISTS WARN AGAINST SALVAGE MENTALITY AND LARGE-SCALE LOGGING

Arizona Senators Kyl and McCain, have requested that Senate field
hearing be held on causes and solutions to Arizona's severe forest
fire danger.  In a letter to Senator Murkowski, chairman of the
Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, they say that
hearings held last August in Flagstaff, AZ have been ignored.  They
cite the work of two Northern Arizona University Professors, Dr.
Wallace Covington and Dr. Margret Moore, to prove that the
Southwest needs immediate legislative relief from environmental
laws and increased salvage logging. Covington and Moore, however, have
repeatedly warned that forest ecosystem restoration will not be
accomplished by a singleminded attempts to increase logging. 

In a May 17th interview with the Arizona Daily Sun, Dr. Moore
warned that Kyl's approach was too simple, and that grazing and
logging excesses must be addressed. In a May 12th interview with
the Mesa Tribune, Dr. Covington also faulted overgrazing, old
growth logging, and fire suppression for forest ecosystem problems. 
He supports thinning, but warned against returning
large-scale timber harvest to the Southwest.  Logging in Arizona
and New Mexico's National Forests and the Navajo Reservation has
been stopped by a court order since August 1995.  It is expected to
be lifted in the next few months.

The Arizona Daily Star editors noted that management of southwestern
forests does need to be reviewed, but questioned whether Kyl or
McCain can be trusted to run honest hearing given their
anti-environmental bents.  The Star noted that both Senators voted
for the disasterous Salvage Rider, and that Kyl falsely blames
environmentalists for fuel loading problems.  The fuel build up,
they said is the result of many decades of Forest Service management,
not an eight month moratorium on logging.

2.  MORE MEDIA COVERAGE OF OVERGRAZING IMPACTS ON FOREST ECOSYSTEM
    HEALTH

Due to education by environmentalists and scientists, the SW media
now regularly cites the contribution of overgrazing and logging, not
just fire suppression, to creating high tree densities in ponderosa
pine forests.  They are also beginning to discuss ecosystem restoration
in terms of the larger problems of declining fisheries, songbirds,
predators, etc.


MESA TRIBUNE May 12, 1996
FORESTRY POLICIES COME UNDER SCRUTINY.  EXPERTS: BETTER STRATEGIES
COULD REDUCE FIRE DANGER

        "A century of overgrazing, unfettered logging and suppression of
natural fires has turned Arizona's forests into dense, unhealthy jungles
and created an unprecedented fire threat.
        Once-grassy stands of giant ponderosa pines are now choked with
small trees and dense undergrowth. Forest floors are thick with
accumulated debris that ignites easily and burns rapidly.
        'We have inadvertently allowed some of our forests to reach
such a fuel buildup that large, severe fires are inevitable,' said W.
Wallace Covington, a Northern Arizona University professor who
has studied the forest ecosystems in Arizona for more than 20
years.
        Overgrazing eliminated the grass from the forests and unbridled
timber harvesting took away the fire resistant, old-growth pine,
Covington said.
        And the policy of fighting every fire that breaks out in
forests has allowed an unprecedented buildup of highly flammable
fuel, said Pete Fule, an NAU researcher who works with Covington.
        'This is not a sustainable system,' Fule said. 'We are going to
continue to have these large, destructive fires until we reconstruct
the forest ecosystem that we've destroyed.'
        ...
        Covington, who heads a research project on Mount Trumbull, north
of Flagstaff, said the project has demonstrated that the forests can be
returned to their natural condition by a combination of selective cutting, debris removal and controlled
burning.
        The Southwest Forest Alliance, a coalition of environmental
groups from Arizona and New Mexico, made similar recommendations in a
1995 report on restoration of Southwest forests.
        The group's recommendations also included enhanced protection
for watersheds and wetlands and the restoration of decimated wildlife
species, including predators, to the forests.


SANTA FE NEW MEXICAN May 15, 1996
ENVIRONMENTALISTS SAY GRAZING HAS MADE FOREST FIRES WORSE

        "During the recent devastating Dome and Hondo fires, the
U.S. Forest Service blamed years of fire suppression for the size
and intensity of the blazes.
        But an environmental group says livestock grazing should
bear much of the blame for the volatile condition of New Mexico's
forests.
        'There is ample evidence that it's livestock grazing and not
fire suppression that is the dominant factor,' said John Horning of
Forest Guardians. 'It has haltered the forest in such a way that
crown fires are more dominant.'
        The Forest Service will soon allow cattle back onto the burn
areas, setting the stage for future catastrophic fires, Horning said.
        ...
        Throughout the forests of the Southwest, there are now
from 1,500 to 3,000 trees per acre on average, where earlier there
had been 40 to 80, Horning said.  Photos taken early in this century
show meadows dotted with relatively sparse growths of usually
mature ponderosa pine, he said.
        The savannah-like grasslands that grew on the forest floor
inhibited tree seedling growth while allowing cool-burning fires, he
said.  Core samples taken from 200 and 300 year old ponderosa
pines show that fires seared the outer bark every five to 15 years,
he said.
        Mature ponderosa pines survived cool fires, but few young
trees did, he said.  When livestock removed grasses, leaving no
fuels to carry fire, tree seedlings proliferated, rapidly producing
forests choked with young trees, he said.
        The Forest Service agrees - but only to a point.
        When it became clear livestock was doing damage, their
numbers were reduced Moody said. Had it not been for fire suppression,
nature would have reduced the resulting unnatural growth of young trees,
he said.
        Wallace Covington, of the School of Forestry of the University
of Northern Arizona, said both viewpoints on the cause of overgrown
forests are valid.
        Before livestock, forests simply did not experience searing
crown fires, he said. But fire suppression perpetuated the problem,
he said.
        'It is sort of a one-two punch and the third punch, of course,
is the crown fires,' he said.
        Moody said the stage has been set for catastrophic fires on
millions of acres of forest and only a massive effort to thin forests,
using prescribed burns and timber harvesting, can prevent future Dome
and Hondo fires.
        Horning agreed, but pointed out that most timber sales target
large ponderosa pines, not the smaller trees that create catastrophic
fires.
        Horning calls putting cattle on the range to keep fuels down
a 'head-in-the-sand' approach to forest management.
        'Until you stop the cycle and stop what has caused these
younger pines to thrive, you are not solving the problem,' he said.
        The Forest Service quickly allows cattle back onto even
severe burn areas, perpetuating the cycle, he said.
        ..."