PUBLIC HIKES TO THREATENED NATIONAL FORESTS CONTINUE IN SUMMER 2005

For the past two summers, the EPIC National Forest program has hosted a series of public hikes to timber sales and mining projects on the four national forests in northwest California. Last summer, in 2005, over 130 community members joined us in visiting a series of past and proposed logging projects, as well as the proposed Canyon Creek Mine.

This past April, the Klamath National Forest cancelled the Whittler timber sale. The exposure that this sale received through a series of public hikes helped to convince the KNF that the sale would be another black eye. It is important that the Forest Service know that the public cares as much about protecting its forests as the timber industry and the Bush Administration do about logging our remaining old-growth forest.

What we have found time and again are thinly veiled attempts to log old-growth trees in the name of reducing fire risks. Logging plans that did not protect rural communities spanned huge areas of native forest, often targetting habitat for sensitive and threatened species of fish and wildlife in already-fragmented landscapes. With the Forest Service pressured by the Bush Administration to produce timber at the expense of resource protection, we unfortunately have several new areas which need public attention.

Check back with us in late May for our 2006 hiking schedule.