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RELEASE: Oregon's Governor Stymies Bush's "Midnight" Forest Raid
President Obama now has chance to protect America's forest legacy, and allow Oregon and the nation's overworked forest biodiversity and carbon stores to recover ecologically(Seattle, WA) -- Ecological Internet (EI) welcomes Oregon governor Ted Kulongoski's decision to block Bush administration plans to sharply increase logging [search] on 2.2 million acres of BLM forests in Western Oregon. Kulongoski concluded that President Bush's hastily arrived at logging plan did not conform to federal environmental laws such as the Endangered Species Act, and failed to protect and restore mature forests to sequester carbon. It would have locked in Bush's anti-environment, industrial forestry model for decades.By waiting until the deadline and calling for revisions and a 30-day extension for public comment, Kulongoski put off final approval until the administration of Democratic President-elect Barack Obama. This decision will ultimately be made by the new U.S. Secretary of the Interior and Congress. This forbearance was not a foregone conclusion, as Oregon has a long history of forest patronage and destroying terrestrial ecosystems for short term economic gain causing long term environmental pain.This is a major victory for Ecological Internet and others that campaigned for this outcome, and portends greater ecological restoration of America's biodiversity and carbon stores once the "Toxic Texan" has left town, and the much anticipated era of ecological hope commences. EI's Earth Action Network's got just what we asked for, and this most recent victory once again demonstrates our global leadership in using the Internet to facilitate environmental conservation.
Source: ClimateArk