Dear Bird People,

I have been receiving the TWEETERS comments on slash burning, and would like

to comment on some of the various consensus ideas that have popped up in
last
few postings.

I am an environmental activist with my own small organization- Clearwater
Biodiversity Project- and am active in issues on the Clearwater River Basin
in Idaho.

1. Consensus processes only work when both parties have something to gain
from the process. People like them because people like to think that
everything can be solved with compromise. Many enviro issues cannot. The
Cascades outsides the parks and Wilderness Areas are living abortions, and
proof that consensus processes have not worked for the past thirty years.


2. The reason that they don't work is because of the law of natural
selection. Say you are an enviro, and you go down to Forks, WA, and you
convince those loggers that they shouldn't cut any more old-growth. 19 out
of 20 may listen to you and quit. They will soon lose their jobs, because
there is virtually no other economy in Forks. They will move. Now you have

one hard-core left. The machine of destruction is still in place. 19 more
are hired. Repeat until you have 20 hardcores.

3. Enviros in consensus and arbitration tend to give away the farm.
Enviros
are generous- often they can afford to be, because their livelihoods do not
depend on logging, I will grant. Industry is selfish. In an arbitration
situation (and I have seen them), enviros will give away too much to get a
consensus. Unfortunately, the laws of ecosystems don't operate on
consensus. Birds, plants, animals and trees need certain things to live,
and
often joint decisions do not adequately serve the needs of the wild things.

Option 9 is a prime example of this- remember, that Clinton did not select
the scientifically generated options 1-8. He wanted more timber cut, so
sent
Jack Ward Thomas back for Option 9 that was more politically palatable.

4. The last place we need to practice new ideas is in the remaining old-
growth forest. You want balance? Give me 50%, that's balance. Don't come
in and say you want to experiment with the remaining 2-5% of old growth to
figure out how you're supposed to do forestry.

5. One letter mentioned cumulative effects. It doesn't matter if you
clearcut one acre if you leave 40,000 alone. But if you clearcut (or
selectively cut, for that matter) 39000 acres and leave 1000 alone, then you

have a problem. We need to change the debate from this site-specific stuff,

this idiot clearcut-replant debate, and start talking about landscape level
effects.

6. We need to start talking PLACE. The issue, even on the landscape level,

is not "do you want to cut this anonymous place that exists in our minds."
It is "Do you want to nuke the entire Olympic National Forest?" We need to
stop the philosophy of logging practice and get REAL.

7. The butchers that destroyed the Cascades are now coming for the remains
of Idaho. We're the last state with big, untouched roadless that is
unprotected by wilderness. We need you folks in the Cascades help BAD.
This
summer, the salvage rider is going to wreak havoc in the Clearwater and the
Nez Perce National Forest. It is already blowing away the Payette and the
Boise. Beautiful places like Cuddy Mountain, full of 500 year old ponderosa

pine on the Payette NF are going to fall to the axe this summer to
Weyerhauser's evil daughter, Boise-Cascade.

8. We have to have the will to demand that they stop. We have to move
beyond denial and into action. And we have to do it now, because if we
don't, in five years, this will be an academic discussion. We respectable
people are going to have to stand in front of the bulldozers this summer.

I am a bird nut, too, and I can remember the endless flocks of waterfowl
that
used to fill the flyway when I was young. I can't imagine a world with only

canada geese and starlings. I've always believed that "Bird people get it!"

But we're going to have to go get THEM if we want a wild world.

Chuck Pezeshki <Pezeshki at mme.wsu.edu>