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Habitat: National Forests Aren't Going Just to the Birds New Logging, Mining, Drilling Policies Threaten Our Heritages
Ben Zimmerman, a retired pharmacologist from the University of Minnesota, is like many Minnesotans who love the outdoors. A resident of Falcon Heights, an inner-ring suburb of Minneapolis-St. Paul, he enjoys watching birds feeding right outside his windows, and he is pleased to have great birding areas along the Mississippi River in the heart of the Twin Cities area. But Ben is increasingly frustrated as he reads about what is happening to our wetlands and forests under Bush administration policies. Years ago he could see Baltimore Orioles passing through his neighborhood on their migration, but now he has fewer and fewer sightings. Ben views this as a direct consequence of weaker protection standards for our wetlands and forests. He is well aware of the dangers the Bush administration policies pose to what Minnesota bird expert Bob Janssen calls the key to continued survival of birdlife: "habitat, habitat, habitat."1 Unfortunately, the outlook for many birds is less than promising, as bird habitat is damaged or eliminated in Minnesota and beyond. Not only has the Bush administration opened up millions of acres of public land to logging, mining, oil and gas drilling, and other development-including some of Minnesota's most environmentally sensitive lands-it has blocked the implementation of a plan to protect the last wild areas of our national forests from development. Add to these the Bush administration's proposed changes to the Endangered Species act, which would weaken or eliminate protections for many species, and we have a formula for even more degradation. Just how important are Minnesota's two national forests, the Superior and Chippewa, in the chain of life? With birds as our indicator, we turn again to Bob Janssen, who answers: "They are very critical." Casual observers may think they are seeing an explosion of birdlife when they observe non-native sparrows at their feeders; and indeed, a few species, such as deer and rabbits, do thrive in proximity with humans. But many of our native birds, including songbirds, need wild places, and are having an increasingly hard time finding them. For instance, neotropical migrants like Blackburnian Warblers and Scarlet Tanagers must cope with depleted tropical rainforests, a crossing of the Gulf of Mexico to a Texas coast bristling with development, and a journey up the Mississippi River corridor, which has been drained of many of its wetlands, in order to reach our northern forests. And those birds that succeed in making it all the way to northern Minnesota must still find wild habitat in order to survive. "Many species of warblers, vireos, thrushes, flycatchers, and wrens nest in or are dependent on these forests," Bob says. Bob has 65 years of birding in Minnesota under his belt and has published three books on birds in the state.2 He notes that while birds have been in a decline for some time, they are now at a breaking point: they cannot sustain more loss of habitat without drastic reductions in their populations and numbers of species. More than one in four U.S. bird species are currently in serious decline.3 In Minnesota, the consequences of destructive Bush administration policies are already being felt in the Superior National Forest.4 Bob is concerned that a timber sale currently ongoing within the national forest will pave the way for much larger and more destructive projects in the near future, and he is not convinced the current project will have as small an impact as the administration would have the public believe. He is worried that new rules put into place by the Bush administration will allow the Forest Service to bypass necessary environmental review, give away portions of Minnesota's natural heritage to the timber industry, and avoid government accountability. Other administrative rules affecting our national forests which go into effect this year will restrict citizen participation, tie judges' hands in favor of the timber industry, and increase commercial logging-even in Minnesota's scarce old-growth and wild forests. "It's just ludicrous what's happening," Ben Zimmerman says, "and the average person is totally unaware of what's going on." Most Minnesotans want to promote and protect the quality of life that a diverse, intact environment and rich birdlife bring to us. "After all," says Bob Janssen, "if we cement everything over and all become millionaires by turning our wild places into commodities, then what have we got? Without changes in Washington, it will be tough for people to tell their grandchildren they're going to ever see a meadowlark." Bob and Ben both know there is a better way than current Bush administration policies. We must protect the last pockets of wild forest, make community protection the top priority of any forest fire policy, and promote cleaner cheaper and safer energy solutions that protect all of America's spectacular and wild places. For more information contact: US Forest Service Audubon Minnesota
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