Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SATURDAY, August 28, 1993 TAG: 9308280274
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C3 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: DAVID REED ASSOCIATED PRESS
DATELINE: ROANOKE LENGTH: Medium
"Most people don't realize that back in the 1800s, most of these mountains were pretty much stripped of vegetation, overgrazed, indiscriminately logged, highly eroded and burned over," said Steve Parsons, a forest planner in Harrisonburg.
In 1913, the federal government began buying the land that now makes up the 1.1 million acre forest. The government controlled forest fires and erosion, planted trees, restored wildlife and built public-access roads and recreational areas.
The government also set up a system of managing the land for multiple uses, a process that is updated regularly with input from the public.
In Brazil, thousands of acres of rain forest are being cut and burned every year. About 11 percent of the 2 million square-mile Amazon wilderness has fallen to the saws and torches of ranchers, farmers, loggers and miners.
Scientists fear that as the forest vanishes, so will millions of species of insects, plants and animals that hold the secrets to new medicines, pesticides and foods. And many believe the destruction is causing a rise in the Earth's temperature.
But there also are millions of acres of land protected in national parks in Brazil.
"There is still a lot that can be done before all the forest in the Amazon is destroyed," said Christina Andrews, a native of Brazil working in the Forest Service's international forestry office in Washington.
Seventeen Brazilian scientists and attorneys are spending three weeks in the United States to study techniques of environmental assessment and public forest management.
The Environmental Protection Agency, the Forest Service, the World Wildlife Fund and the Environmental Law Institute sponsored the trip.
During the past three days, the Brazilians toured the George Washington National Forest to see how management theory is put into practice.
"The most important thing is to see it actually being implemented," Brazilian ecologist Maria Joaquina Pires said in a telephone interview.
Friday, the Brazilians watched a slide show on the forest's history that Parsons put together.
The day before, they watched foresters burn a small patch of forest to create open spaces needed to re-establish a rare plant - the box huckleberry. They traveled public-access roads to campgrounds and walked an area recently logged to improve the habitat for grouse, a bird valued by hunters.
Pires said some conservationists in her country oppose road construction in national parks, and "fire is seen in a negative way." The media in Brazil, she said, portray the issue only in terms of economics vs. preservation.
by CNB