They did it themselves
Some 200
federal employees and outside experts have developed a sweeping
management plan for public lands in the six states of the Columbia
River Basin. And it didn’t cost taxpayers a dime. It was done under
the auspices of the nonprofit AFSEEE, the Association of Forest
Service Employees for Environmental Ethics. The unprecedented
volunteer effort cost the group less than $30,000. In contrast, a
joint Forest Service-Bureau of Land Management planning team has
been working on a similar effort for over two years at an estimated
cost of $25 million (HCN, 9/19/94). The official basin plan is due
in June. The AFSEEE alternative recommends bringing back natural
disturbances such as fire and reforming the federal incentive
system, which now rewards land managers for meeting timber targets
rather than protecting ecosystems. Says Cindy Reichelt, an employee
on the Colville National Forest, who worked on the AFSEEE report,
“After robbing from the land for at least 100 years, it’s time to
give something back. The AFSEEE plan provides a process to do
that.”
A copy of the report costs $16; the
12-page executive summary costs $8. Contact AFSEEE, P.O. Box 11615,
Eugene, OR 97440 (541/484-2692) http://www.afseee@afseee.org. For a
copy of the upcoming federal report, contact the Interior Columbia
Basin Ecosystem Management Project, 112 E. Poplar St., Walla Walla,
WA 99362 (509/522-4030).
* Michelle
McClellan
This article appeared in the print edition of the magazine with the headline They did it themselves.
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