ATLANTA -- Tree farmer Kent Hinson says he is out on a limb
when it comes to his pro-environment view.
"Most foresters in general look at the
environmentalists as an adversary, as a group that makes rules about
how we should do our jobs," said Hinson, who owns about 200 acres of
forestland near Dublin in central Georgia. "Me, I believe that
foresters should be environmentalists first. I may be an odd forester,
but we are both trying for the same thing."
Mark Woodall{grv} on land he owns
near LaGrange, Ga. Woodall says a
plan to open untouched federal forest to commercial logging would hurt
farmers.
(Mike Jacoby -- AP)
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Now that the Bush
administration is planning to open roadless forests to commercial
logging, more tree farmers are joining Hinson by reaching out to
environmental groups to keep a glut of timber off the market.
Small farmers who have benefited from timber
restrictions banning logging in the vast federal lands in the West do
not stand to be awarded the massive contracts the timber, oil and gas
goliaths will pursue. Instead, they fear the entry of more lumber in
the logging market.
"It's bad for the environment and bad for the
pocketbooks of the tree farmer," said Mark Woodall, who grows about
6,000 acres of trees near LaGrange in west Georgia.
The White House is rewriting a restriction ordered
in the Clinton administration's final days that essentially protected
almost 60 million acres of federal forestland from logging, mining and
oil and gas development by prohibiting road construction.
The change, announced in July, would give governors
the difficult decision in early 2006 of whether to petition the federal
government to permit new roads in their forests or keep them untouched.
Although the decision affects more than 30 percent
of national forests, the more than 700,000 acres spanning Georgia,
Alabama, South Carolina, North Carolina, Tennessee and Virginia are a
relatively small portion compared with the huge tracts of pristine
forest in the West.
Those tracts are worrisome to tree farmers such as
Woodall, who has experienced the rising price of sawtimber pinewood
over 15 years. Prices now reach almost $40 a ton.
"The restrictions doubled our prices, so if you went back,
it could cut our prices in half," he said.
The logging business has not been all solid, though.
Timber prices fluctuate with droughts, and beetle infestations can
devastate acres. Products made from small wood chips melded together
are draining the demand for timber, and business is being exported to
China and South America.
Groups including the Southern Environmental Law
Center are hoping to harness the power of concerned loggers before the
two-month comment period on the roadless restrictions ends Sept. 14.
"There are folks out there getting the information
out to tree farmers and landowners," said David Carr, head of the
center's public lands project.
Foresters and environmentalists have allied in the
past, particularly to fight encroaching urban sprawl, and both groups
applauded the 2001 creation of the Roadless Area Conservation Rule.
Supporters of the decision say it will help preserve
forest health by allowing forest thinning to clear out the potentially
dangerous undergrowth that can fuel fires.
They also insist new roads will also provide access to
campers, bikers and firefighters.
Environmental groups, though, point to about 9,500
roads that already cut into forests in the South. "There's already tons
of access," Carr said.
The lobbying extends beyond tree farmers. They are
trying to mobilize outdoorsmen as well as politicians to fight the
rule. They point to protest letters from both houses of Congress
addressed to President Bush.
Some tree farmers have already started to lobby
governors, even though they could not appeal to the federal government
until 2006.
"I think here in the South all the
governors we've talked to have said this could be bad for the economy
down here," said Woodall, a member of the Sierra Club.
