Our forests need our voices. Today!

I don’t know anyone who doesn’t love trees. What’s not to love? They are beautiful, provide shade, food, wildlife habitat, shelter and help fight climate change by absorbing carbon dioxide and releasing pure oxygen into the atmosphere.

But a new Forest Service proposal may make it super easy for loggers to come in and cut down the trees in our beloved National Forest Lands, without any of us having a say about it.

The Administration is proposing a rule change which would “eliminate opportunities for citizen involvement and environmental review on more than 90 percent of all Forest Service projects” says Jim Furnish, the former Deputy Chief of the U.S. Forest Service.

He goes on to say, in this article from the Washington Post, “Buried deep within 16 pages of legalese are some nasty surprises: a nearly unlimited license to commercially log nearly seven square miles — about 3,000 football fields — or build five miles of logging roads at a time without involving the public or disclosing environmental consequences.”

This proposal would not only potentially eliminate our trees, destroy wildlife habitats and damage fresh water streams and rivers, but prevent us from being able to influence that things that go on in our National Forests.

But we have not been silenced yet. We have until August 26 to weigh in with the U.S Forest Service about this proposed rule change. Please, please, voice your opinion while you still can. Do it today. Do it now. Comments can be posted here: http://regulations.gov/docket?D=FS-2019-0010. Just click on “Comment now.”

Thank you.

Below is my own comment.

I vehemently oppose the new rule change for the Forest Service that would allow more logging and road building in our National Forests without public input or without disclosing the environmental consequences. The new rule changes could have catastrophic consequences for fresh water, wildlife habitat and forest ecology. At a time when we desperately need trees to help fight the effects of climate change, we should ALL be dedicated to saving every tree possible.