Crowdog
06-10-2002, 09:25 PM
June 07, 2002
Activists hit streets, tree themselves
By SHERRY DEVLIN of the Missoulian
Forest protesters plan summerlong campaign
Environmental activists nationwide - including a twentysomething woman perched on a sheet of plywood two stories up a maple tree in downtown Missoula - set out Thursday on a summerlong campaign to criticize the forest management policies of Agriculture Undersecretary Mark Rey.
"On every forest policy front, we are going backwards - back to the days when timber was the dominant use of the national forests and the public was largely left out of the equation," said Jake Kreilick, a longtime Missoula activist and leader of the National Forest Protection Alliance.
Kreilick and others met with Rey at his Washington, D.C., office, then picketed the building. The meeting, Kreilick said, was "anti-climatic."
"We aired our issues and concerns, but the undersecretary obviously did not feel our pain," he said.
At the same time, a half-dozen members of Wild Rockies Earth First hoisted a plywood plank into a boulevard tree outside the Forest Service's regional office in Missoula and Rebecca Smith climbed aboard with her knitting needles and yarn.
She promised to sit in the tree until Saturday, although her activism will continue - "24 hours a day all summer."
"We are trying to raise public awareness about the salvage scam on the Bitterroot National Forest," Smith said. "The logging is causing a lot of harm to an area that has already been logged. This vigil is just the beginning."
Rey, meanwhile, gave low marks to the protesters on the sidewalk outside his Washington office. "I am a connoisseur of street theater," he said. "They lost some points by not having anyone dressed as an animal. There were also no TV cameras and nothing was thrown. Those are all deductions."
"I don't think this is about the merits here, so I don't really want to talk about the merits," Rey said. "I think this is a campaign to cause friction and to raise money. There is such a dramatic disconnect between what these groups are saying in private and what they are advancing when they meet us in public."
As proof, the undersecretary offered a pair of documents - one a letter requesting the meeting with Rey, the other a confidential e-mail memo outlining this summer's Operation Enduring Forests campaign.
In the letter, National Forest Protection Alliance executive director Tom Weis said his group looked forward "to talking with you face-to-face, and to engaging in a meaningful and constructive dialogue on how best the U.S. Forest Service can advance the enlightened stewardship of our nation's natural heritage."
In the memo to their fellow activists, Weis and Kreilick listed their "main objectives" as exposing "the scientific lies and bogus management rationalizations of the Forest Service and to project a much tougher public stance toward the Bush-Rey Forest Service and their pro-development agenda for national forests."
"Our primary strategy for accomplishing these objectives will be by focusing as much public and media attention on timber industry lobbyist Mark Rey and the profound damage he is now causing across the national forest system," the memo said.
On Thursday, Kreilick said environmental groups lost all momentum in the weeks and months immediately following the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. "We have had a period of retrenchment in the environmental movement," he said. "People were reluctant to criticize the Bush administration for a period. But that is going to change."
The terrorist attacks also had a "pretty big effect on the environmental group funding base," according to Kreilick. "For many of the grass-roots environmental groups, it's been a tough and lean time, and that also contributed to a lack of activity."
Environmentalists intend to "shine the spotlight" on Rey because he is the Agriculture undersecretary who oversees the Forest Service. He is also a former timber industry lobbyist and conservative congressional staffer.
Since being appointed undersecretary by President Bush, Rey has enacted policy changes "that betray the wishes of the American public," Kreilick said. "We hear all this talk of analysis paralysis in the Forest Service, for example. But these laws were enacted to give the public more say in national forest management. It does take more time. It does take more analysis and more Forest Service personnel, but that's how we make sure that they are abiding by the law.
"That's the public will."
Smith, the Missoula tree sitter, said environmentalists are particularly unhappy with a recent federal court settlement allowing salvage logging of burned trees in the Bitterroot National Forest. They're also worried about Rey's proposal for "charter" forests, where nongovernment groups assume responsibility for individual forest tracts. And they want roadless areas to remain roadless.
Activism is effective, said Jay Buck, who was keeping Smith company from the ground and sending rations skyward by rope. "It gets the public to think about these issues," he said. "It gets people's attention."
But it will not change Rey's mind.
"The only thing these protests will do," he said, "is to provoke a response from the other side. People with alternative views will feel compelled to balance the scale by doing the same, and I'm not sure what salutary effect that will have on resolving these issues."
Rey said he asked the environmentalists who came to his office - one group on Wednesday, another on Thursday, with a third scheduled for Friday afternoon - to use their activism budgets to travel to the offices of timber company presidents.
"It is tragic that there is no middle ground where people can meet on these forest management issues," the undersecretary said. "I would prefer that the first action be one of reaching across the divide of disagreement, and the first reaction to be to shake that hand and see if we cannot resolve some of these issues."
Reporter Sherry Devlin can be reached at 523-5268 or at sdevlin@missoulian.com.
Activists hit streets, tree themselves
By SHERRY DEVLIN of the Missoulian
Forest protesters plan summerlong campaign
Environmental activists nationwide - including a twentysomething woman perched on a sheet of plywood two stories up a maple tree in downtown Missoula - set out Thursday on a summerlong campaign to criticize the forest management policies of Agriculture Undersecretary Mark Rey.
"On every forest policy front, we are going backwards - back to the days when timber was the dominant use of the national forests and the public was largely left out of the equation," said Jake Kreilick, a longtime Missoula activist and leader of the National Forest Protection Alliance.
Kreilick and others met with Rey at his Washington, D.C., office, then picketed the building. The meeting, Kreilick said, was "anti-climatic."
"We aired our issues and concerns, but the undersecretary obviously did not feel our pain," he said.
At the same time, a half-dozen members of Wild Rockies Earth First hoisted a plywood plank into a boulevard tree outside the Forest Service's regional office in Missoula and Rebecca Smith climbed aboard with her knitting needles and yarn.
She promised to sit in the tree until Saturday, although her activism will continue - "24 hours a day all summer."
"We are trying to raise public awareness about the salvage scam on the Bitterroot National Forest," Smith said. "The logging is causing a lot of harm to an area that has already been logged. This vigil is just the beginning."
Rey, meanwhile, gave low marks to the protesters on the sidewalk outside his Washington office. "I am a connoisseur of street theater," he said. "They lost some points by not having anyone dressed as an animal. There were also no TV cameras and nothing was thrown. Those are all deductions."
"I don't think this is about the merits here, so I don't really want to talk about the merits," Rey said. "I think this is a campaign to cause friction and to raise money. There is such a dramatic disconnect between what these groups are saying in private and what they are advancing when they meet us in public."
As proof, the undersecretary offered a pair of documents - one a letter requesting the meeting with Rey, the other a confidential e-mail memo outlining this summer's Operation Enduring Forests campaign.
In the letter, National Forest Protection Alliance executive director Tom Weis said his group looked forward "to talking with you face-to-face, and to engaging in a meaningful and constructive dialogue on how best the U.S. Forest Service can advance the enlightened stewardship of our nation's natural heritage."
In the memo to their fellow activists, Weis and Kreilick listed their "main objectives" as exposing "the scientific lies and bogus management rationalizations of the Forest Service and to project a much tougher public stance toward the Bush-Rey Forest Service and their pro-development agenda for national forests."
"Our primary strategy for accomplishing these objectives will be by focusing as much public and media attention on timber industry lobbyist Mark Rey and the profound damage he is now causing across the national forest system," the memo said.
On Thursday, Kreilick said environmental groups lost all momentum in the weeks and months immediately following the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. "We have had a period of retrenchment in the environmental movement," he said. "People were reluctant to criticize the Bush administration for a period. But that is going to change."
The terrorist attacks also had a "pretty big effect on the environmental group funding base," according to Kreilick. "For many of the grass-roots environmental groups, it's been a tough and lean time, and that also contributed to a lack of activity."
Environmentalists intend to "shine the spotlight" on Rey because he is the Agriculture undersecretary who oversees the Forest Service. He is also a former timber industry lobbyist and conservative congressional staffer.
Since being appointed undersecretary by President Bush, Rey has enacted policy changes "that betray the wishes of the American public," Kreilick said. "We hear all this talk of analysis paralysis in the Forest Service, for example. But these laws were enacted to give the public more say in national forest management. It does take more time. It does take more analysis and more Forest Service personnel, but that's how we make sure that they are abiding by the law.
"That's the public will."
Smith, the Missoula tree sitter, said environmentalists are particularly unhappy with a recent federal court settlement allowing salvage logging of burned trees in the Bitterroot National Forest. They're also worried about Rey's proposal for "charter" forests, where nongovernment groups assume responsibility for individual forest tracts. And they want roadless areas to remain roadless.
Activism is effective, said Jay Buck, who was keeping Smith company from the ground and sending rations skyward by rope. "It gets the public to think about these issues," he said. "It gets people's attention."
But it will not change Rey's mind.
"The only thing these protests will do," he said, "is to provoke a response from the other side. People with alternative views will feel compelled to balance the scale by doing the same, and I'm not sure what salutary effect that will have on resolving these issues."
Rey said he asked the environmentalists who came to his office - one group on Wednesday, another on Thursday, with a third scheduled for Friday afternoon - to use their activism budgets to travel to the offices of timber company presidents.
"It is tragic that there is no middle ground where people can meet on these forest management issues," the undersecretary said. "I would prefer that the first action be one of reaching across the divide of disagreement, and the first reaction to be to shake that hand and see if we cannot resolve some of these issues."
Reporter Sherry Devlin can be reached at 523-5268 or at sdevlin@missoulian.com.