Tom Dunlap
Addicted to ArboristSite
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/text/134526256_interior31.html
Saturday, August 31, 2002, 12:00 a.m. Pacific
New wildfire plan watchdog has unorthodox views
By Faith Bremner
Gannett News Service
WASHINGTON — The man chosen to head the Bush administration's wildfire
prevention program doubts the existence of ecosystems and says it would not be a
crisis if the nation's threatened and endangered species became extinct.
Allan Fitzsimmons was named yesterday to be in charge of reducing fire danger on lands managed by the Interior
Department. But Fitzsimmons' background as a free-market policy analyst and his writings for libertarian and
conservative think tanks have alarmed environmental groups across the West. The groups say Fitzsimmons'
appointment confirms their fears that the recently announced program the administration calls the Healthy Forests
Initiative is a smokescreen for a return to unfettered logging. "How can a man who doesn't understand ecological
systems and community values for wildlife run a program that's supposed to protect forests and communities?"
asked John McCarthy, spokesman for the Idaho Conservation League. "People won't have confidence in this guy.
He'll be divisive, it will all be based on junk science."
For the past 10 years, he has operated his consulting firm, Balanced Resource Solutions in Woodbridge, Va.
Between 1983 and 1992, he held a series of policy-setting jobs in the Interior and Energy departments. He holds
a doctorate in geography.
He said his goal in forest policy is not to tilt toward either heavy logging or excessive protections.
"The intent is to get that pendulum as close to the center as you can," he told The Oregonian. "It's not devious. It's
certainly not a cynical attempt to turn chain saws loose from sea to shining sea with smoke from forest fires as a
cover," as some environmentalists charge.
Sen. Larry Craig, R-Idaho, is expected to introduce legislation next week that would carry out at least some of
President Bush's forest-management ideas. Bush wants to have logging companies thin the forests in exchange for
the right to harvest larger, commercially valuable trees.
His plan would suspend environmental rules and make it harder for the public to sue to stop thinning work from
going forward. Environmentalists support thinning forests around homes and communities, but only if loggers keep
their saws away from the large trees.
In "The Illusion of Ecosystem Management," published in 1999 by the Political Economy Research Center, which
says it applies market principles to environmental problems, Fitzsimmons says ecosystems exist only in the human
imagination and cannot be delineated. Federal policies, therefore, should not be used to try to manage or restore
them, he wrote.
In another paper, entitled "Ecological Confusion among the Clergy," Fitzsimmons criticizes religious leaders who
encourage their parishioners to worship God by protecting the environment. He singled out Catholic bishops who
issued their own paper in 1997 in support of protecting and restoring the Columbia River watershed. The paper
was published in 2000 by the Center for Economic Personalism, which advocates limited government and
promotes religion and "economic liberty."
"By urging the public to make changes in their lives to accommodate nonexistent ecosystem needs, one wonders if
the bishops are beginning inadvertently to make an idol out of their own creation, what they call the Columbia
Basin ecosystem," he writes.
He added that the biodiversity crisis religious leaders often point to is not a crisis at all. There are between
250,000 and 750,000 species in the United States and 1,201 are on the Fish and Wildlife Service's endangered
and threatened list.
"If each of these species were to become extinct tomorrow, our total biological endowment would decline by less
than 1 percent, which would be a disconcerting loss but would not constitute a crisis," Fitzsimmons writes.
"Conversely, at least 4,500 non-indigenous species have established free-living populations in the United States
over the past few hundred years, so that on balance, this part of the world has seen an increase in biological
diversity."
Timothy Ingalsbee, executive director of the Western Fire Ecology Center, said many of those non-indigenous
species — like cheatgrass — are taking over native landscapes with devastating results. Cheatgrass is highly
flammable, has little nutritional value for livestock and chokes out native plants.
"Making the argument that non-native species are increasing the biological diversity is pure bunk."
Information from The Associated Press is included in this report.
Saturday, August 31, 2002, 12:00 a.m. Pacific
New wildfire plan watchdog has unorthodox views
By Faith Bremner
Gannett News Service
WASHINGTON — The man chosen to head the Bush administration's wildfire
prevention program doubts the existence of ecosystems and says it would not be a
crisis if the nation's threatened and endangered species became extinct.
Allan Fitzsimmons was named yesterday to be in charge of reducing fire danger on lands managed by the Interior
Department. But Fitzsimmons' background as a free-market policy analyst and his writings for libertarian and
conservative think tanks have alarmed environmental groups across the West. The groups say Fitzsimmons'
appointment confirms their fears that the recently announced program the administration calls the Healthy Forests
Initiative is a smokescreen for a return to unfettered logging. "How can a man who doesn't understand ecological
systems and community values for wildlife run a program that's supposed to protect forests and communities?"
asked John McCarthy, spokesman for the Idaho Conservation League. "People won't have confidence in this guy.
He'll be divisive, it will all be based on junk science."
For the past 10 years, he has operated his consulting firm, Balanced Resource Solutions in Woodbridge, Va.
Between 1983 and 1992, he held a series of policy-setting jobs in the Interior and Energy departments. He holds
a doctorate in geography.
He said his goal in forest policy is not to tilt toward either heavy logging or excessive protections.
"The intent is to get that pendulum as close to the center as you can," he told The Oregonian. "It's not devious. It's
certainly not a cynical attempt to turn chain saws loose from sea to shining sea with smoke from forest fires as a
cover," as some environmentalists charge.
Sen. Larry Craig, R-Idaho, is expected to introduce legislation next week that would carry out at least some of
President Bush's forest-management ideas. Bush wants to have logging companies thin the forests in exchange for
the right to harvest larger, commercially valuable trees.
His plan would suspend environmental rules and make it harder for the public to sue to stop thinning work from
going forward. Environmentalists support thinning forests around homes and communities, but only if loggers keep
their saws away from the large trees.
In "The Illusion of Ecosystem Management," published in 1999 by the Political Economy Research Center, which
says it applies market principles to environmental problems, Fitzsimmons says ecosystems exist only in the human
imagination and cannot be delineated. Federal policies, therefore, should not be used to try to manage or restore
them, he wrote.
In another paper, entitled "Ecological Confusion among the Clergy," Fitzsimmons criticizes religious leaders who
encourage their parishioners to worship God by protecting the environment. He singled out Catholic bishops who
issued their own paper in 1997 in support of protecting and restoring the Columbia River watershed. The paper
was published in 2000 by the Center for Economic Personalism, which advocates limited government and
promotes religion and "economic liberty."
"By urging the public to make changes in their lives to accommodate nonexistent ecosystem needs, one wonders if
the bishops are beginning inadvertently to make an idol out of their own creation, what they call the Columbia
Basin ecosystem," he writes.
He added that the biodiversity crisis religious leaders often point to is not a crisis at all. There are between
250,000 and 750,000 species in the United States and 1,201 are on the Fish and Wildlife Service's endangered
and threatened list.
"If each of these species were to become extinct tomorrow, our total biological endowment would decline by less
than 1 percent, which would be a disconcerting loss but would not constitute a crisis," Fitzsimmons writes.
"Conversely, at least 4,500 non-indigenous species have established free-living populations in the United States
over the past few hundred years, so that on balance, this part of the world has seen an increase in biological
diversity."
Timothy Ingalsbee, executive director of the Western Fire Ecology Center, said many of those non-indigenous
species — like cheatgrass — are taking over native landscapes with devastating results. Cheatgrass is highly
flammable, has little nutritional value for livestock and chokes out native plants.
"Making the argument that non-native species are increasing the biological diversity is pure bunk."
Information from The Associated Press is included in this report.
Talk about a foreign species.
