Word: timbers
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1990-1999
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...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...
Just as important, of the 10 options, that one produced the second highest amount of timber -- about 1.2 billion bd. ft. -- and preserved the second highest number of timber jobs -- a projected 119,500 in the region. That compares with 125,400 jobs in 1992 and 145,000 in 1990. No one disputes that some timber-dependent communities could be hard hit, but FEMAT economist Brian Greber forecast that the job losses would have little effect on the regional economy and negligible impact on the American consumer...
...satisfied when President Clinton approved a plan to reduce logging by nearly two-thirds on federal lands -- and put habitats of the spotted owl off limits -- while providing more than $1 billion to retrain loggers and help tide over their communities. The timber industry attacked the compromise, saying it would devastate struggling businesses. And environmentalists complained it would permit cutting across large areas...