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18. Epilogue: The Final Forest
- University of Washington Press
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301 The final forest, that last magnificent remnant of what stood in America before European discovery, was quieter in 1991. It was as if all sides, exhausted by the acrimony and the worry, had paused to take breath. In the Olympic National Forest around Forks, the federal government ’s timber sale program was at an almost complete halt. Half the staff in its district office there, the people who had been applauded for years for achieving the heady harvest goals set by Congress, had been warned that their jobs were likely to disappear. Washington State’s Department of Natural Resources had also slowed allowing any new contracts while it considered the impact of protecting the bird. Logging had slowed anyway due to the winter’s recession and the war in Iraq. The timber industry was in the downward swing of an economic cycle it regarded as as inevitable as the seasons. By mid-year lumber prices were rising again, but the pause was a good time to take stock. Compromise was still elusive. Most Pacific Northwest congressmen, not anxious to carry the feud into the 1992 election, wanted the issue resolved. The 1990 election had not proved to be a clear referendum on the timber issue. Ann Goos’s narrow loss was symptomatic of the confusing mix of wins and losses for both ePilogUe The Final Forest 302 the final foreSt sides. Most incumbents prevailed. Oregon Senator Mark Hatfield, one of the firmest defenders of the timber industry, got the scare of his political life when polls showed him trailing his liberal challenger, but he hurried home to campaign and won election to a fifth term. In Washington, a Democratic liberal named Jolene Unsoeld easily held on to the timber district congressional seat she first had narrowly won two years earlier but only after appealing to the gun lobby and dancing around the tree issue. The only thing the voters seemed to confirm was the wisdom of the politicians ’ cautious wariness of the no-win old-growth controversy. Earlier predictions that the 1990s would be the “Decade of the Environment ” had yet to be proven. Despite polls showing strong public support for environmental protection, environmental initiatives across the nation were pummeled less than six months after the twentieth anniversary of Earth Day. The most ambitious timber proposal, California’s “Forests Forever” initiative to buy up old-growth forests, was defeated. In Washington State, a measure for statewide growth controls and planning was trounced two to one. An attempt to forge a compromise on logging of private lands in Washington, called the Sustained Forestry Roundtable , broke down in disagreement between environmentalists and the timber industry. By the end of 1991 the acrimony was so strong that environmentalists once more turned to the courts, this time suing the state Forest Practices Board for not imposing stricter regulations on logging. In Washington, D.C, the desire of Northwest congressional representatives to put the issue behind them was stymied by a hardening of positions on both sides. Environmentalists, having nearly shut down national forest logging in the final forest through the courts, had little incentive for making concessions. The industry, meanwhile, was a temporary political victim of its own economic prudence. Having routinely purchased timber it did not intend to harvest for two or three seasons, it was still cutting wood from this backlog despite the court prohibition on more timber sales, meaning the economic disaster it repeatedly predicted was slow to develop. A persistent recession also dampened national demand for lumber. Some industry strategists counseled waiting until the wood shortage became so apparent there might be support for amending the source of its trouble, the Endangered Species Act. While half a dozen competing ancient-forest bills had been introduced and more [44.192.247.185] Project MUSE (2024-03-28 09:55 GMT) ePiloGue 303 were expected from committee chairmen, it remained uncertain whether agreement would be reached before the 1992 elections, and whether the solution would be a temporary truce or permanent protection. The bureaucracy’s plans for owl protection, meanwhile, plodded onward. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service did not expect to arrive at a final map of “critical habitat” and finish its owl recovery until 1992. The Forest Service hoped to end the Judge Dwyer injunction by adopting the Jack Ward Thomas recommendations as its owl protection plan in 1992, but fierce fighting was expected over whether that was adequate. That something as sweeping as the 7.7 million...