79-03-A4

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Dishonest Environmentalists

Transcript The Natural Resources Defense council is an organization seemingly dedicated to keeping about the way it was when the Pilgrims landed. One of their principal targets of attack is the U.S. Forest service a unit of the department of Agriculture. According to this Natural Resources Defense council, the Forest service is grossly mismanaging the ration's 187 million acres of national forests. To support its charge the council has distributed a booklet purporting to document the abuses tolerated or inflicted by the Forest service. One picture in the booklet, captioned "Forest Serving or Forest Killing?" shows a logged-off hillside, covered with logging waste. It's not a pretty picture. The booklet identifies the photo as "national forests". Well, the American Forest institute did a little sleuthing and found the file from which the photo was taken. The truth is it was taken June, 1940 -- 39 years ago, in Humboldt County, California. The area shown in the photo was not a national forest, but on private land. The clear-cut hillside has long since been reforested and is well on its way to producing a new corp of forest products. Another photo in the council's booklet - also said to be "national forest" - shows a creek choked with logging waste. It turns out that this creek is in Oregon, and runs along a private access road to privately owned land within the overall boundaries of Umpqua National forest. The picture was taken in 1952. The present owner believes that the photo was taken when the area was being cleared for ranching, and thus being removed from forest management. Yet another photo in the booklet, also labeled "national forests", shows severe soil erosion on a skid trail on a clear-cut area. It turns out that this photo was also taken on private l and in Oregon, not in a national forest. The area had been burned over by a forest fire, and the remaining salvageable trees had been cut in 1953. The burning off of underbrush was the direct and unpreventable cause of the resulting erosion. Now some will point out that a generation ago forest management practices were not as well-developed and environmentally sound as they are today. That may be. But, today's Forest Service, responding to the mandates of Congress, has achieved a high level of professionalism in management of our forests - not to preserve them untouched forever, but to make them productive in terms of the needs of the American people. By trying to portray the Forest service as an irresponsible destroyer of the environment, the National Resources Defense council has engaged in the worse kind of dishonesty. The council owes the Forest service and the forest products industry an apology for the falsehoods in its booklet. And the rest of us owe the Forest service a vote of thanks for its efforts to make our forests a working, renewable resource, instead of a forbidden zone. This is Ronald Reagan. Thanks for listening.		Details Batch Number 79-03-A4 Production Date 02/13/1979 Book/Page Online PDF Audio Youtube? No
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