The U.S. Forest Service is expected to announce today a long-awaited decision that would substantially increase protections for the Sierra Nevada's oldest trees and most vulnerable wildlife.
The management blueprint for 11.5 million acres of national forest land in the Sierra, which will shape countless specific policies, is the latest in a series of sweeping environmental decisions by the Clinton administration in its final days in office.
It reflects an effort, proponents say, not only to boost conservation efforts, but to reverse an ecological decline in a mountain range that occupies a central place in America's wilderness lore.
Sources close to the process said the document will severely restrict tree-cutting on about 4 million acres in which old growth is found, confine the most intensive timbering to land near developed areas and strengthen stream protections.
In much of the Sierra, logging would drop below current levels, which already are dramatically lower than 1980s' peaks.
Forest Service officials declined to describe details until the blueprint is released. But environmentalists, timber interests and recreation enthusiasts who have been keenly watching the formulation of the new policy reacted to it Thursday as word filtered out.
Conservationists--who have long criticized the Forest Service as too willing to accommodate the interests of mining and logging companies--were generally pleased, saying the agency was finally heeding the ecological needs of the majestic Sierra range.
The plan "represents a major step forward," said Craig Thomas of the Sierra Nevada Forest Protection Campaign. "It begins the process of protecting and restoring the Sierra Nevada's ecosystems, which have been degraded by decades of logging and road building."
Critics grumbled that the Forest Service was ramming the document through in the final days of the Clinton administration. And the logging industry argued that by limiting timbering so extensively, the guidelines would promote wildfires that would devastate the landscape.
"What is being recommended makes absolutely no sense," said Chris Nance of the California Forestry Assn., which represents the state's timber companies. "There are too many trees in the woods," he said. "Harvesting needs to be a part of the forest health solution and for political reasons the Clinton administration refused to acknowledge that."
