Word: timber
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...hour days, seven days a week, amid a welter of maps, coffee cups and stale pizza. Their mission, direct from the President: explore every conceivable option for preserving the Northwest's ancient forests and its wildlife, while saving whatever can be saved of the once proud and productive timber industry...
That mission may have been virtually impossible, judging from the outraged reaction to the unveiling last week of Bill Clinton's long-awaited timber plan. Trying to strike a balance between the needs of nature and the demands of man, the President decreed that the amount of logging on federal land would be sharply reduced and offered a $1.2 billion aid package to help timber communities diversify their economies...
...neither side in the great forest debate was pleased. A shocked logging industry claimed that the plan would wipe out 85,000 jobs and devastate timber-dependent towns. "The program is dead on arrival," fumed mill owner John Hampton, chairman of the Northwest Forest Resource Council. And while protesting loggers in the Northwest tossed empty caskets on a flaming pyre and sent a funeral wreath to the White House, House Speaker Tom Foley of Washington State was smoldering...
...White House's plan establishes an array of reserves encompassing key watersheds and old-growth stands, an innovative strategy intended to protect the most ecologically essential areas of the forests and thereby preserve the habitat of spotted owls, salmon and countless other species. The blueprint allows for average annual timber harvests of 1.2 billion bd. ft. -- less than one-third of the mid-'80s peak of 5 billion bd. ft. a year. Administration projections put job losses at fewer than 10,000, not quite the apocalyptic vision of the timber companies. But neither the $1.2 billion for worker retraining...
...Northwest would not be so easily resolved. After a decade of unsustainable logging, court injunctions and federal inaction, the situation was dire when Clinton came to the White House. Said the President: "We have to play the hand we were dealt." In April he convened the much ballyhooed "Timber Summit" in Portland, where he promised to break the gridlock. Clinton set up three teams to tackle the problem, of which perhaps the most important was the Forest Ecosystem Management Assessment Team, or FEMAT. Dressed in jeans, flannel shirts and running shoes, the 37 members , could look out from Portland...