Conservation Northwest

in brief NWEA's position that the Landscape Committee should be given strong authority to review logging proposals. The Board expressed an interest in taking this up again at their September meeting. However, they are long past the legislative deadline for action of June 2001, and it's unclear whether local governments will continue to wait patiently if they stall past September. NWEA sues to protect old growth and wildlife On April 14, NWEA and several other conservation groups filed a lawsuit in federal district court in Seattle to challenge the Bush administration's elimination of rules in the Northwest Forest Plan that protect wildlife that live in old forests. The socalled "survey and manage" rules, which required the government to protect sites occupied by certain rare and nwea news in brief sensitive wildlife that live in old-growth forests, were dropped in March so that more old forests on federal lands could be logged without constraints. Most of the "survey and manage" species serve critical ecological roles that boost forest productivity and provide resilience and resistance to natural disturbances. NWEA also joined several fishing and conservation groups on May 27 in a lawsuit aimed at protecting salmon and trout habitat on federal lands. In March, the Bush administration dropped rules that require the government to "maintain and restore" ecological functions in streams that support imperiled salmon and trout. The rule was dropped after federal courts halted plans to log old-growth forests on unstable slopes above productive trout streams. Rather than comply with the rule, which is necessary for the recovery of endangered fish populations, the Bush administration dropped it so that logging plans can move forward more rapidly. Wilderness protection in northeastern Washington create enough opposition to kill legislation that is supported by a majority of voters. Wilderness is the strongest and most durable wildlands conservation law because it purposefully restricts human uses to impermanent and non-mechanized forms. Wilderness is a place where time and space and our place in it are at a different scale, where wildlife thrives because it is safe and whole. Wilderness is nature as nature intended. Many in Ferry County support wilderness The "good old boy network" gets much of the blame for driving the opposition to wildlands preservation, but really it's not that simple. There are third-generation men and women in rural Ferry County— where the majority of the US portion of the Kettle River Range lies— who strongly support wilderness preservation. It's not having one's ancestors buried in the local cemetery that makes the difference. A small but vocal group of anti-wilderness partisans has worked to create distrust and political rifts in rural and urban communities. Political forces organizing public opposition to wilderness are the same as those that profit from logging, mining, and livestock grazing on those same lands. Public opinion polls tell us that protecting wilderness is a strong American value in both rural and urban areas, yet it's not an issue that most voters use to determine their candidate of choice. As Kettle Range activists learned in 1984, perception, however erroneous, can Keeping the eastside wild The Wilderness Act turns 40 years old on September 3, 2004. This year also marks the twentieth anniversary of the Washington Wilderness Act. The battle for lasting protection goes on as one generation passes the torch to the next. Then as now, it is critical that we recognize how much has changed, and how much will change in the coming decades and the impact these changes will have on plants, animals, and people. Kettle Range Conservation Group and Northwest Ecosystem Alliance have worked for years to protect the last wild forests in Washington state. Preserving Washington's wild forests is a matter of life and death to fish, wildlife, and native plants. It's our obligation as stewards to ensure its survival. Tim Coleman (tcoleman@kettlerange.org), executive director of Kettle Range Conservation Group (509.775.2667), lives in Republic, Washington. Kettle Range. Tim Coleman In 1976 a group of impassioned northeastern Washington forest conservationists created the Kettle Range Conservation Group to campaign for Congressional wilderness designation of the Kettle River Range in the Colville and Okanogan National Forest. The Okanogan Highlands is a critical wildlife migration corridor between the Rocky and Cascade Mountains, a mountainous transboundary ecosystem that is home to grizzly bear, lynx, wolverine, and moose. But in 1984 Congressman Tom Foley removed the Kettle River Range and other eastern Washington wildlands from the final House version of the Washington Wilderness Act. Foley's actions were devastating. Hundreds of miles of roads were subsequently built in the Kettle Range and tens of thousands of acres of roadless wild forests logged. In response, local activists began aggressively challenging timber sales across the region, and with few exceptions, stopped those that threatened roadless areas and ancient forests. Keeping the Northwest wild Summer 2004 5

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