Scientists clash in forest protection effort

WASHINGTON (AP) - The government wanted scientific advice when it asked 13 scholars to help update rules that dictate how national forests can be used.

Then politics broke out among the scientists.

One scientist accused his colleagues of trying to turn forests into a biological reserve. Another, the leader of the group, quit because he could not defend the panel's conclusions.

Now the panel is leaderless and five months behind schedule. Observers wonder what will become of the once-heady effort to update regulations that govern 191 million acres of national forests.

"What we have here are some fundamental differences," said Roger Sedjo, one of the scientists appointed to the panel.

He said the dispute shows academics aren't immune from the familiar and sometimes bitter argument over how much logging to allow in national forests.

The rules, last revised in 1982, dictate everything from where logging can occur to where a ski chalet can be built. They also help determine which lands must be left pristine for the sake of preserving nature.

Sedjo, senior fellow at the Washington, D.C.-based Resources for the Future, said most scientists want rules that are more environmentally restrictive than in current law. The rules, he contends, would allow little or almost no federal logging on federal land.

He wrote in a sharply worded dissent last month saying the scientists' draft report was "fundamentally flawed" and would "move the national forest system toward operating as a biological reserve."

Norman Johnson, an Oregon State University forestry professor who led the team, changed a report summary to address Sedjo's concerns. But when other scientists rebuffed him, Johnson quit.

"I do not wish to have my name on the report," Johnson wrote in an e-mail to his colleagues this month. He and three of his colleagues could not be reached for comment.

But Forest Service spokesman Chris Wood said the scientists' recommendations would not require a sharp drop in logging. In fact, he said, they are mostly consistent with Forest Service views on how forest land should be governed.

Environmental groups say the scholars have adopted common-sense precepts that environmentalists have been advocating for years.

"If you don't sustain the land ecologically, you can't sustain economic use of the land," said Nathaniel Lawrence, senior attorney of the Natural Resources Defense Council in San Francisco.

The scientists' defenders also say some dissent was expected. "You put a group of scientists around a table and you expect them to agree? No you don't," said Michael Francis, director of national forests for The Wilderness Society.

But timber groups have seized upon the squabbling. Laura Cleland, vice president of the Portland, Oregon-based Independent Forest Products Association, said Johnson's sudden resignation was "just a bombshell."

She said the tiff should help people discover that the scientists' effort is running amok.

Jim Geisinger, president of the Portland, Oregon-based Northwest Forestry Association, said the scientists "completely got off the path of what they were supposed to do." Instead of helping to draft planning regulations, they are drafting laws, he said.

Timber interests say they have reason to be worried. They have watched the timber harvest fall from more than 10 billion board feet in 1988 to three billion board feet in recent years, causing mill closures and other economic hardships on rural communities.

Sen. Larry Craig, a Forest Service critic, is also questioning the scientists' work. The Idaho Republican wrote in a letter to the Forest Service this month that the scientists' recommendations are inconsistent with existing law.

If the Forest Service fails to revise the regulations, it wouldn't be the first time. Attempted updates in 1991 and 1994 failed because of disagreement over the level of protections for plants and animals, Wood said.

The rules are used by forest officials in drafting individual plans that govern 150 national forests. More than two-thirds of the plans are due to be revised in the next three years, so updating the regulations soon is viewed as critical.

The scientists are expected to submit a final report early next year.

Then, Forest Service officials would decide which if any recommendations to accept.