Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SATURDAY, December 11, 1993 TAG: 9312110060
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A-4 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: WASHINGTON LENGTH: Medium
The move won praise from the timber industry, but environmentalists warned that the plans could push the bird toward extinction.
The government will focus recovery efforts for the threatened owl on national forests and other federal lands, making it possible to relax protective guidelines on state and private lands in the Northwest, Assistant Interior Secretary George Frampton said.
"The vast majority of suitable owl habitat that remains in the region is on federal land," Frampton said at a news conference.
Marv Plenert, regional director in Portland, Ore., for the Fish and Wildlife Service, said the plan would free "significant" amounts of private timber for harvest.
The administration hopes to complete an environmental-impact statement on the proposed regulation and formally propose it in March when President Clinton presents a comprehensive protection plan to a federal judge in Seattle.
Logging has been banned across most federal lands with owls in Oregon, Washington and Northern California since U.S. District Judge William Dwyer found government harvest plans to be illegal in 1991.
The timber industry commended the government's move.
"Relief for state and private landowners in the region is vital to avoid a worsening of the severe social and economic impacts already occurring," said Mark Rey, vice president of the American Forest and Paper Association.
Environmentalists were critical, saying protection of private as well as public lands is necessary, because only remnants of the old-growth ecosystem have survived the post-World War II logging boom.
"If the federal lands look like a mangy dog, a lot of the private lands look like a skinned chihuahua," said Frances Hunt, forestry resource specialist for the National Wildlife Federation.
by CNB