NEWS RELEASE

Contact Information

December 14, 2007

Senator Barrasso Proposes Bill to Destroy Wyoming’s Forests

LARAMIE – U.S. Senator John Barrasso has introduced a bill which he claims will stem the spread of bark beetle infestation in Wyoming forests. What the bill really will do is allow our national forests to be placed under state management, particularly the management of State Forester Bill Crapser. Prior to his appointment as State Forester, Crapser worked for the timber industry and has no record of protecting forest wildlife or the health of forest ecosystems.

Senator Barrasso is trying to stop the spread of bark beetles in our forests, but there is no tool in the toolbox which can stop the beetles, and the Forest Service has admitted this. The Rocky Mountain Regional Office of the Forest Service has proclaimed that salvage logging does not stop or even slow the spread of bark beetles but local ranger districts are holding town meetings and promoting logging projects that claim to control the same insects.

“Scientific evidence suggests that once mountain pine beetles are at the outbreak stage, only extremely cold temperatures can stem the spread. Commercial logging of insect-infested trees cannot stem the spread of the outbreak. What logging would likely do is damage the natural process of ecosystem recovery at a time when these ecosystems are stressed,” said Dr. Bill Baker, Professor of Geography at the University of Wyoming.

“Although common sense might suggest that beetle-killed trees in subalpine forests pose a serious fire hazard, the limited scientific evidence at this point suggests that neither fire extent nor fire severity are much affected by expanses of beetle-killed trees, “said Baker. “This is so because fuel is already more than sufficient to carry fire in subalpine forests, and the amount of fuel, dead or alive, does not have much effect on when a fire occurs or how severe it is.”

Logging of the forests on top of the current beetle kill will only make the problems worse, not better. Removal of beetle-infested trees would cause excessive sedimentation of forest streams and contribute to the erosion of the fragile forest soils. It can also interfere with the natural regeneration of the forests. In essence, stream health would be destroyed, not restored.

State Representative Jane Warren (D-Laramie) said, “This bill reflec 14ts a short term strategy for economic benefit and represents a short-sighted fix which would have devastating impacts to our forests. The long-term impacts will not be as obvious right away, but they will take a very long time to heal the forest.”

“We already have laws and regulations which require sustainable management of our national forests. We don’t need to destroy ecosystems with special interest legislation which will only make the situation worse,” said Suzanne Lewis, Conservation Advocate for Biodiversity Conservation Alliance. “This bill would be bad news for the health of our forests and the wildlife that depend upon them.”