Environmentalists carry on about the need for society to shift to more use of renewable resources and "sustainability." This being the case, one has to wonder why the same environmentalists have virtually killed the public land timber industry in this country. The 200 unemployed sawmill workers in Fredonia and Kanab are only the latest victims of this incomprehensible contradiction.
Even Cecil Andrus, former U.S. secretary of interior, former governor of Idaho and a well-known environmentalist, has called for more-active management, including timbering of what he termed "decadent" Western forests.The Kaibab Forest is producing more timber than was being cut. This being the case, what could Ken Rait find so objectionable that he and his Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance could not abide reasonable harvesting? Where is it written that we need to manage our national forests in accordance with the dictates of the Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance? Where is the backbone of the Forest Service?
Next, SUWA wants 6 million acres of public land locked up as federal wilderness. When will SUWA be satisfied, and is the public willing to pay the price? All of this flies in the face of SUWA and Sierra Club assurances that federal wilderness lockups will be great for the rural Utah economy. No reasonable person believed these people anyway.
Dawnette Tuttle
Orangeville