Timber Policy a ‘Fiasco’

Your long story on the Tongass National Forest in Alaska (“Old Tress, New Battles,” April 23) never mentioned that for every tax dollar spent by the federal government on logging roads and other timber program overhead, less than a dime is returned to the U.S. Treasury. In other words, Americans are heavily subsidizing the cutting of centuries-old trees to provide rayon and sandwich bags for Japan. The House was so appalled by these environmental and economic horrors that it not only passed a reform bill last summer but did so by a 7-1 margin.

The Times’ story barely mentions the overall fiscal fiasco. Instead, it focuses on timber industry suggestions that environmentalists and others troubled by this destruction of a rare rain forest are meddling in the affairs of Alaskans. But the Tongass, like Yellowstone or the Grand Canyon, belongs to all of us, not just to those who live nearby.

Nor, as the story claims, are national forests supposed to be managed “for commercial development--essentially to create jobs.” The law clearly requires that there be a balance between commercial uses and non-consumptive uses, including recreation, wildlife habitat and watershed protection. Right now, unfortunately, the Forest Service is letting the logging program drive management.

Among the losers under the Forest Service’s “tree-farm” management of the Tongass are the tourism and fishing industries, both of which provide more jobs than the local timber industry and depend on a healthy Tongass.

Taxpayers who are tired of pouring more than $50 million a year into a program to prop up the southeast Alaska timber industry, while destroying a rare rain forest rich in wildlife, should tell their representatives in Congress that this senseless program should be reformed--now.

GEORGE T. FRAMPTON JR.

Washington

The writer is the president of the Wilderness Society.