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Siskiyou Roadless - Southwestern Oregon: Can Fewer Trees Really Mean Fewer Forest Fires? With a few precautionary measures, Ronnie Chittim protected her home from the flames of the Biscuit fire. Now, Ronnie faces a graver threat, the Bush administration who is attempting to log her backyard-Oregon's wild Siskiyou National Forest. Oregon's national forests contain some of the highest-quality fish and wildlife habitat, backcountry recreation, and clean water supplies in the country. Scientists and local citizens know that protecting wild, undeveloped, and unroaded forests is crucial to maintaining healthy populations of big game species like elk, plentiful runs of sport fish like salmon and steelhead, and ensuring the survival of threatened, endangered and declining species such as the marbled murrelet and red tree vole. The ecological and economic values of healthy, roadless wild forests far outweigh the benefits associated with logging and road-building activities. Yet the Bush administration has embarked on several new logging initiatives that threaten the water quality, salmon runs, and ancient forests of the Northwest. The administration and its allies in the timber industry are placing our Pacific Northwest communities and wild forest heritage at risk with several proposals. Rather than commit funds and resources to fuel reduction projects surrounding communities at risk from wildfires, the Bush administration is using our taxpayer dollars to make it easier for timber companies to log in remote wild forests. The administration is planning timber sales in these wild places, and it is now working to undercut a national policy to protect roadless forests. These combined efforts will locate timber sales in pristine fish and wildlife habitat, pollute clean water sources, and increase the risk of more severe fires in the future. There is a better way to protect lives, homes, and communities in Oregon. Ronnie Chittim's home and guest cabins are situated in the heart of the Siskiyou Wild Rivers Area. For years, small groups have come to stay at the Chittim's cabins to enjoy the beauty and diversity of the wildlife and plant life found in southwestern Oregon-a unique region that scientists have called one of the most important ecosystems on the planet. The soils of the Siskiyou Wild Rivers Area support a globally significant community of rare wildflowers and plants, and the area's fire-enriched forests contain more than 1,800 plant species – 131 of which exist nowhere else on earth. Situated on the banks of the Illinois River, Ronnie's property also sits at ground zero of the 2002 Biscuit Wildfire that burned more than 400,000 acres of the Siskiyous and was the largest wildfire in the nation in 2002. Ronnie was one of the fortunate property owners in the area. Using the information and resources in the federal "Firewise" program, she was able to clear brush and other potential fuel sources from around her home and set sprinkler hoses on her buildings. Along with a little luck, Ronnie's efforts spared her family's home and her cottage business from the fires, which burned right up to the base of the buildings. While many communities and homeowners in southwestern Oregon are in dire need of assistance, the Bush administration's policies are making it harder to ensure the safety of the Chittim's property in the event of another forest fire. Roadless areas in and out of the Siskiyous are threatened by the so-called Healthy Forest Initiative that President Bush recently signed into law. Instead of focusing preventative brush and small tree removal efforts around homes and communities, the administration's policies will allow timber companies to harvest larger trees deeper in the forest-trees known to be the most able to withstand fire-under the guise of fire protection. Ronnie is extremely concerned about the new law. She says logging has already begun, not in an effort to protect communities, "but to benefit the corporate interests that help set the politics that dictate the future of our public lands. The trees you see leaving here now don't have a burned spot on them." While the Bush administration has pushed pro-logging legislation through Congress and signed it into law, Attorney General John Ashcroft has failed to vigorously defend the Roadless Area Conservation Rule against legal challenges, despite a pledge during his senate confirmation hearing to do so. The forward-thinking, overwhelmingly publicly-supported Roadless Rule prohibits road-building and commercial logging on the remaining 58.5 million acres of pristine backcountry within our national forests. But the administration has worked since its first day in power to undermine this well-researched, science-based policy. The Bush administration recently released a draft plan for the Siskiyou Wild Rivers Area designed to log wild forests in the aftermath of the Biscuit Fire. The administration's preferred strategy calls for logging 12,000 acres of inventoried roadless forest in the North and South Kalmiopsis Roadless Areas, and will ultimately impact more than 57,000 acres of officially inventoried roadless areas. This action is a direct attack on the heart and soul of the Roadless Rule and its safeguards for ancient forests. The policies of the Bush administration will allow logging in roadless areas just over the hill from Ronnie Chittim's cabins. According to the Forest Service, wildfires are nearly twice as likely in areas that are already roaded and logged than in wild roadless areas. Ronnie and hundreds of other southwest Orgeon citizens are concerned that the Bush administration's logging plans will lead to frequent and more intense fires, and that the solitude and quality of life in the area will be compromised as helicopters drone overhead, logging trucks clog the area's rural roads, and the forest is whittled away-not in an effort to protect Oregon's communities, but to restore the timber industry's dominance in the Northwest's National Forests. For more information contact: Ivan Maluski, Sierra Club (503) 243-6656, imaluski@earthlink.net Rolf Skar, Siskiyou Project (503) 222-6101, rolf@siskiyou.org Ronnie Chittim, (541) 592-9678 Up to Top HOME | Email Signup | About Us | Contact Us | Terms of Use | © 2008 Sierra Club