10 Years of the Northwest Forest Plan

Today marks the 10 year anniversary of the Northwest Forest Plan, a Clinton-era rule enacted to address the decline of the Northern Spotted Owl and (supposedly) to create a truce in the "Timber Wars" of the 1980's and early 1990's. Although lambasted by radicals and criticized by some mainstream environmentalists, loss of support from big green groups on fighting the plan eventually led to its enactment.

While creating some protections, the Plan mandated that logging continue on 1,000,000's of acres of publicly owned National Forests. The Plan allowed for major loopholes, such as the infamous Salvage Logging Rider. Old-growth logging - with taxpayer funded corporate welfare subsidizing the destruction - continued, as did grassroots resistance. The rule of profit over life remained unchanged.

Enter Bush II. Of W's innumerable, well-documented environmental rollbacks, his changes to forest policy are amongst the most severe. Bush has made Cascadia (the Southern half of which happens to be in the United States) a special focus, visiting us (1, 2) under the strangest circumstances when he announces new forest-death laws. What little protection the Northwest Forest Plan offered is now in shambles, with the elimination of rare species and aquatic protections under the plan.

BACKGROUND AND NEWS: Cascadia RiSiNG! Eco-Defense Infosite | Portland Indymedia Forest Page | Native Forest Council |

RELATED GROUPS: Back to the WALL | Bark | Blue Mountains Biodiversity Project | Cascadia Forest Defenders | Cascadia Wildlands Project | EPIC | Klamath-Salmon Action Network | KS Wild | Medicine Lake Infopage | Northwest Ecosystem Survey Team | Oxygen Collective | PROWL