Long been referred to as the "Sacrifice Forest" of the National Forest system, the GPNF is heavily fragmented and has a high road density. Though the President's Forest Plan protected some good old-growth habitat in the Late Successional Reserves (LSRs), the GP still lives up to its unfortunate label. The matrix (the area managed for timber harvest) in the GPNF, houses more spotted owl pairs and old-growth forest than does the LSRs. In addition, belying any notion of ecosystem management, the current timber plan on the GP involves liquidating the old growth across the matrix and replacing it  with tree plantations. Dozens of current and planned timber sales are targeting the last remaining stands of old growth across the matrix.

For more information on the Gifford Pinchot National Forest, contact:

Gifford Pinchot Task Force
Alix Davidson
hare@olywa.net

Pacific Crest Biodiversity Project
Peter Nelson
pcbp@sprynet.com

Wenatchee National Forest

Flower Ring. Yellow balsam root flowers laid on a stump suggest the color of the hot flames that recently blazed through the background of this picture and torched the remains of this already cut-over forest. According to the Sierra Nevada Ecosystem Project Final Report to Congress, Timber harvest, through its effects on forest structure, local microclimate, and fuel accumulation, has increased fire severity more than any other recent human activity. Clearcutting can change fire climate so that fires start more easily, spread faster, and burn hotter. For each person required to control a surface fire in a mature stand burning under average conditions, 20 will be required if the area includes clearcuts.

For more information about the Wenatchee contact:

Northwest Ecosystem Alliance
Dave Werntz
dwerntz@ecosystem.org

Cowpie Circle. Author Jim Nollman and his wife Katy hiked for four days deep into the Pasaytan Wilderness in north central Washington and made a sad and startlilng discovery. "After the first hour on the trail we didn't see another human being.Climbing up on a high ridge just below Coleman Peak (7600 feet) we started noticing flat round droppings that certainly resembled cowpies. We wondered what animal they might be from: Elk? mountain goats? Knowing of The ZeroCircles Project, I made a ring of them, and felt determined to find out what they were when we got back to civilization.
 

They sure looked like cowpies but how could a herd of cattle be grazing in such a fragile high mountain meadow in a US designated wilderness area? When we got down ,we asked a guy packing horsetrips into the wilderness. He told us they were indeed cowpies, the result of some grandfathered-in rancher who essentially gets to trample the high meadows every other year even though so much time has passed since the Pasaytan was declared wilderness. So much for the motto: "FOREVER WILD."

Nollman didn't have a camera to document his circle so he drew it in his unique style of art. For information on the Okanagan National Forest contact: Northwest Ecosystem Alliance, Dave Werntz, dwerntz@ecosystem.org
 
 

---

Olympic National Forest

Olympic Zero. An activist's daughter holds up the score for Olympic National Forest's sustainable forestry program: ZERO. This National Forest is one of this country's best examples of the terrible destruction caused by pursuing the industrial forestry paradigm on public lands-- a paradigm that calls for converting natural forest ecosystems into tree farms. 400 million board feet of timber were cut here annually in the early  1980's. The devastation of this National Forest is so complete that it's next to impossible to find any original forest left. And what
forest it was. . . . old and huge firs, cedar and hemlock on par with world famous Olympic National Park next door. Wildlife and salmon populations have been devastated here like few places on Earth.

For information on how to help Olympic National Forest restore what they have lost  contact:
Pacific Crest Biodiversity Project
Peter Nelson
pcbp@sprynet.com

Catalog Circle.   This circle was constructed from  catalogs sent to one home in the holiday season between Thanksgiving and New Years. The Washington State Department of Natural Resources manage thousands of acres of forest trust lands with a mandate to fund the construction of schools. The time has come to question this practice. Does it really make sense to log valuable forest habitats to fund schools? Surely funding can come from other sources.
For more information on Washington State trust lands, contact Northwest Ecosystem Alliance. Even more pertinent-

• Direct mailers gobble sixty-eight million trees per year.
• Half the received envelopes are never opened. We pay $320 million incinerating, land filling, and recycling them.
• Pulp demand will soon be responsible for half the world's annual timber cut each year.
• Every year each American uses the equivalent in wood products of one old-growth tree.

For More Information, contact:
Paper for the Third Millennium.
Treecycle Recycled Paper- Issues and Information.
Living Tree Paper Company.
Earth Island Institute- ReThinkPaperCampaign