Oregon Public Broadcasting

The U.S. Forest Service has finalized a sweeping policy meant to guide whether Northwest forests will be logged or protected.  An earlier version of the policy was tossed out last year.  And as Rob Manning reports, federal officials and conservationists disagree over what the new plan actually means.

The new rule affects more than 190 million acres of federal forest land across the country, including millions of acres in the Northwest. On that at least, government and environmental leaders can agree. Beyond that, though, agreement breaks down.

The feds say the new rule will help officials manage forests more sustainably. Conservationists predict widespread degradation.

Asante Riverwind is with the Oregon chapter of the Sierra Club. He’s looking at management plans based on the new rule and doesn’t like what he sees.

Riverwind: "What we’ve seen thus far have been plans that have opened up most of the region’s  forests, including removing roadless area protections to logging, road-building, OHV use, grazing, to the detriment of the natural heritage of all of us."

But Forest Service assistant chief, Sally Collins, says the new forest rule follows all environmental laws, and should help endangered species, for instance. She says the rule even adds accountability measures to ensure that conservation is taking place. But she says the new rule does depart from the old rule by emphasizing flexibility.

Collins: "We've got climate change, fires, insects and disease, all kinds of changes – invasive species – that are happening way faster than any of us dreamed of, when we were doing these plans earlier. And it can’t take us, like it’s taken us earlier, ten years, to do a fifteen-year plan. We've got to be able to bring that information into the process more quickly, and respond more aggressively."

Since the new rule is a guiding policy document, rather than an action plan, it isn’t as easy to appeal.

However, Sally Collins hopes advocates will take advantage of the collaborative approach of the new rule, and work with forest managers, instead of litigating. Environmental groups counter that this new  Bush Administration rule is so much looser that it's begging for a lawsuit.