Current work in wildlife, rivers, public lands, and climate

Monday, August 29, 2005
First Healthy Forests

Under an August 26th deadline, WildEarth Guardians filed the first ever “objection” in the state under President Bush’s Healthy Forests Act.
Contact: WildEarth Guardians

Santa Fe, NM – Under an August 26th deadline, WildEarth Guardians filed the first ever “objection” in the state under President Bush’s Healthy Forests Act. The Santa Fe conservation group charges in its objection that the Lincoln’s plan for the Perk-Grindstone Thinning Project in Ruidoso violates the new law by ignoring public input and violating the recovery plan for the Mexican spotted owl.

The project calls for 5,747 acres of logging, including helicopter logging and prescribed burning between the Inn of the Mountain Gods and Grindstone Reservoir and immediately northwest of the Village of Ruidoso. Despite big tree logging, the project would still cost taxpayers over $5 million. The proposal grew from a Community Wildfire Protection Plan developed by stakeholders in the Ruidoso area, but the conservation group’s concerns were completely ignored contrary to the Healthy Forests Act’s requirement for collaboration.

In its earlier comments on the proposal, WildEarth Guardians presented a Citizen’s Alternative to the Forest Service, but nothing from this alternative was incorporated into the final project. The HFRA envisioned robust collaboration with stakeholders, which would presumably require give and take on both sides.

“Our greatest fear is being realized: that the government would just use the Healthy Forest Act as cover for business as usual.” said Bryan Bird of WildEarth Guardians. “Even with the weakening of environmental laws to expedite these projects, the government still can’t get it right.

The group points out in its August 23rd objection that the proposal violates the new law in several ways, most notably which would lift restrictions on tree size in the protected forests for the Mexican spotted owl. The owl has been hit hard in recent years by actions taken by the Lincoln including research that recently resulted in 13 dead owls and an authorization to log inside of 36 owl protected activity centers.

“The Mexican spotted owl is getting hit hard on this national forest and it’s irresponsible to consider lifting protections meant as a last resort to save this unique southwestern bird.” Said Bird. “Communities can be defended from wildfire at the same time that wildlife and water quality are protected, why go to this extreme?”

The Perk-Grindstone Project would be the first ever implanted under the new law in New Mexico driven by economics rather than ecological conditions are considered significant obstacles for community agreement and project implementation. WildEarth Guardians does not oppose the purpose and need of the Perk-Grindstone Project per se; however, it believes that prescribed burning (both management ignited as well as wildland fire use) can be used to a greater degree with less manipulation of vegetation than has been vaguely proposed in the scoping document and that a diameter cap would serve all interests.

The Perk-Grindstone Citizen’s Alternative includes the following:

1. No new road construction;
2. No landscape level logging or thinning;
3. 12” d.b.h. diameter cap;
4. 9” diameter cap within Mexican spotted owl activity centers and northern goshawk territories;
5. Retire grazing allotments in the planning area (grazing reduces grasses which previously fueled frequent, low-intensity surface fires and normally compete with pine seedling establishment and the removal of livestock is necessary for a successful restoration of historic vegetation structure and natural processes);
6. Increase law enforcement presence, especially after business hours to prevent tree and animal poaching;
7. Develop a pre and post-project monitoring plan for wildlife, soil impacts and water quality and other resource concerns;
8. Create a citizen oversight committee to work with the USFS in integrating monitoring information into an adaptive management plan;
9. Fuel Breaks and defensible spaces based on landscape features and weather patterns (e.g. location of past lightening strikes and fires, past thinnings, prevailing wind directions, and location of private dwellings, etc, etc.).
10. Contour felling of all cut trees over 6” d.b.h (limbed trees be placed perpendicular to the slope, set into the soil, staked on the downhill side and arranged on a shingle pattern): trees under 6” d.b.h. will be piled and burned; and,
11. Limit fires to wildland fire use (‘managed’ naturally occurring wildfires).

WildEarth Guardians is a non-profit corporation with approximately 1400 members throughout the United States, including New Mexico. WildEarth Guardians’ mission is to protect and restore the natural biological diversity of forests in America’s southwest, including forests in the Lincoln National Forest. Members of WildEarth Guardians engage in outdoor recreation, wildlife viewing and other activities in the Lincoln National Forest.

Read the Objection (PDF)