As the new home of OSPIRG's environmental work, Environment Oregon can be contacted regarding this news release.
Statement of Laura Etherton, OSPIRG Field Director
For the first time, Governor
Ted Kulongoski has announced his support for protection of roadless national
forests. In a June 1 statement in response to the Bush administration's plan
to aggressively log Oregon's Siskiyou wild rivers area in the largest timber
sale in modern history, Gov. Kulongoski issued a statement in which he said
he "strongly" opposes intrusion into roadless areas.
Oregon State Public Interest
Research Group (OSPIRG) applauds Governor Ted Kulongoski for declaring his strong
opposition to intrusions into roadless forests. This is good news for Oregon's
last remaining wild places and the clean water, wildlife habitat and recreation
opportunities they provide.
The governor's statement
came as part of his comment criticizing just one of the Bush administration's
many challenges to landmark forest protections across the country—the Biscuit
salvage logging plan. The plan includes logging in over 8,000 acres of inventoried
roadless areas, and will damage and fragment 48,000 acres of roadless areas
to such a degree that these areas may no longer qualify as wilderness. OSPIRG
is disappointed the plan also includes aggressive logging in old growth reserves
and in areas where logging will harm fish and water quality, and we encourage
the governor to oppose these aspects of the plan as well.
Governor Kulongoski joins
the governors of five other states who have declared their support for protection
of roadless areas. Nearly 60 million acres of America's last roadless national
forestlands were protected under the 2001 Roadless Area Conservation Rule, which
was enacted by President Clinton after a record 1.6 million Americans submitted
comments backing the plan. The Bush administration recently reduced the number
of acres protected by eliminating protection for more than 9.3 million acres
in the Tongass National Forest in Alaska.
Gubernatorial support for
roadless area protection is critical because the Bush administration has indicated
that it may propose allowing state governors to eliminate protections for roadless
national forests in their states, even though these forests are owned by all
Americans. The support of Oregon's governor is particularly important because
Oregon contains almost two million acres of roadless areas and old growth threatened
by the Bush administration's environmental rollbacks.
OSPIRG applauds Gov. Kulongoski
for supporting protections of roadless areas. We urge him to call on the Bush
administration to uphold the Roadless Area Conservation Rule, reinstate protections
for the Tongass, and retract the administration's current attempt to violate
the roadless rule in the Siskiyou national forest.
Oregon State Public Interest
Research Group (OSPIRG) is a non-profit, non-partisan public interest organization
with over 28,000 members across Oregon.
