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Re: “Managing fire is vital to the health of our forests” [Jan. 2, Opinion]:
John Marshall submits that citizens’ attempted enforcement of environmental laws is “unfortunate.”
He also unscientifically ignores the most likely reason for the continued decline of ancient forest-dependent species: Fifty years of voracious logging of our public lands that depleted habitat to the point of no return before it could be curtailed.
Enforcing environmental laws does not “undermine” federal projects, it ensures scientific validation of agency decisions and allows citizens the right to challenge the policies of our federal government. The U.S. Forest Service decision that has been challenged by North Cascades Conservation Council presents only one option to protect communities from fire. It fails to consider plans submitted in good faith by citizens, allows logging contractors to select trees to be cut, and fails to consider the impacts to fish and wildlife of adjacent logging projects.
“Doing nothing” is not the purpose of the National Environmental Policy Act, as Marshall submits. It is to look at a wide variety of options to solve a problem and allow citizens to have a voice. To disallow exercise of those rights would result in the dictatorial management of our cherished federal lands by the industrial foresters that ruined most of our public forests.
Ric Bailey, Winthrop
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