-received this today:
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Dear Senator Feinstein, Senator Boxer, and Congressperson Pelosi,
Per the Sierra Club press release below, please do everything within your
power to prevent this blatant travesty--this monumental crime against the
earth and our heritage!!! It's beyond belief--but with this Administration,
despite the pious rhetoric, truly nothing is sacred--not life, earth,
freedom, democracy, not even god. TOTALLY MORALLY BANKRUPT.
Sincerely,
Mary Bull, Co-Director
Greenwood Earth Alliance
Save the Redwoods - Boycott the Gap Campaign
252 Frederick, San Francisco, CA 94117
http://www.gapsucks.org415-731-7924 chalicenew@earthlink.net
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
JANUARY 27, 2005
1:50 PM
CONTACT: Sierra Club
Eric Antebi 415-977-5747
Annie Strickler 202-675-2384
Conservation Groups Challenge Plan to Log Giant Sequoia Forest
Groups Point to Neighboring National Park for Better Way to Manage National
Treasure
SAN FRANCISCO, CA -- Conservation organizations challenged the Bush
administration's decision to log Giant Sequoia National Monument in federal
court earlier today. The groups also encouraged the administration and the
court to look to neighboring Sequoia National Park for a better way to
manage the rare forest.
The Sierra Club, Sierra Nevada Forest Protection Campaign, Earth Island
Institute, Tule River Conservancy, Sequoia Forest Keeper, and Center for
Biological Diversity jointly filed the complaint in San Francisco Federal
District Court.
"These magnificent giant Sequoia forests are found nowhere else on earth,"
explained Bruce Hamilton, Sierra Club Conservation Director. "It makes no
sense for the Bush administration to sacrifice such a spectacular national
treasure. It also happens to be illegal."
Giant Sequoia National Monument boasts two-thirds of all the Sequoia
redwoods in the world, with most of the remainder found in the adjacent
National Park. The popularity and awe-inspiring beauty of the Sequoia forest
and its wildlife led President Bill Clinton permanently protect the forest
as a National Monument under the Antiquities Act. Earlier, President George
Bush Sr. had proclaimed the Sequoia groves off limits to commercial logging.
Earlier this month, the Bush administration officially reversed those
policies by finalizing plans to allow what amounts to commercial logging in
the Monument, including the prized Giant Sequoia groves. The
administration's plan would allow 7.5 million board feet of timber to be
removed annually from the Monument, enough to fill 1,500 logging trucks each
year. This policy would include logging of healthy trees of any species as
big as 30 inches in diameter or more. Trees that size can be as much as 200
years old.
"This plan opens up huge areas to logging and specifically targets trees big
enough to sell, undermining the whole purpose of the Monument. The Bush
administration is shirking its responsibility to current and future
generations to take care of this ancient and treasured forest," added Carla
Cloer, representing the Tule River Conservancy.
As a model for better management, the Sierra Club and others are asking the
Bush administration to look to nearby Sequoia National Park, where
innovative conservation and fire prevention strategies have reinvigorated
the Sequoia groves and made nearby communities safer. "In stark contrast to
the very successful management techniques used for decades by the National
Park Service in the Sequoia National Park," reads the complaint, "
administration] approved a Giant Sequoia National Monument Management
Plan... that would permit extensive logging and cause the degradation of old
forest habitat and irreparable harm to the Monument¹s wildlife, directly
conflicting with the purposes of the Sequoia Monument."
"The plan proposed by the Forest Service reverts back to an outdated
strategy that ignores the clear recommendations of fire scientists on the
Monument Science Advisory Committee, that fire risk reduction is not about
logging large trees," stated Craig Thomas, Director of the Sierra Nevada
Forest Protection Campaign.
-Giant Sequoia National Monument
Management Plan, Winter 2005
The Bush administration's final plan for Giant Sequoia National Monument would open up huge areas to logging and allow the removal of trees up to 30 inches in diameter or more. The following maps show just how much of the Monument will be affected by this policy.
To view maps of the areas within the Monument where logging will be
permitted, go to: http://www.sierraclub.org/wildlands/sequoiaplan
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