Bush's Forest Management Plan Deserves Support From Northeast Georgia

The media in the Eastern part of the united States has been relatively timid in its reporting the massive forest fires taking place this year out West, and it was interesting to note that much of the national media gave little play to President Bush's proposals that would provide some protection for our national forests. In fact, some media outlets gave more coverage to the rantings of city-dwelling environmentalists, whose knee-jerk reaction was to oppose any proposal put forward by Bush, than they did to the President's plan.

The fact is there have been more devastating forest fires in the Western United States this year than ever before. It is tragic, and a large part of the problem has been that environmentalists have, in recent years, successfully lobbied against logging and other activities that would deter wild forest fires. They want to take the forests back to what they consider their original condition.

But there is a debate, even among environmentalists, about what is and what isn't good forest management. The Nature Conservancy, for instance, is working on controlled burns in some forests, and others are pointing out that the Indians frequently burned forests for various reasons.
Said President Bush in announcing his plan for the national forests: "We need to make our forests healthy by using some common sense. We need to understand you let kindling build up and there's a lightening strike, you're going to get yourself a big fire.

It seems to me we in Northeast Georgia need to give the President some pretty serious backing in what he is trying to do. After all, we have a 750,000 acre national forest right here in our own mountains. We don't need any big forest fires here.

This is Gordon Sawyer, and may the wind always be at your back.

http://accesswdun.com/article/2002/8/190695