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Phone Calls Needed as Feinstein Considers Fire Management Policy

Your help is needed to protect our forests from misguided fire management policies!

Thirteen Western U.S. Senators are currently preparing legislation for September to address the recent spate of fires burning throughout the West. This legislation could offer real solutions, or simply make things far worse by opening our ancient forests and roadless areas to irresponsible logging.

California's senior Senator Dianne Feinstein is working with this group of senators but has not yet made her views known on important issues such as ancient forests and roadless areas. Your phone call today can help ensure she is a strong advocate for responsible forest management and not senseless, damaging commercial logging.

Effective fire management policies should:

-- Uphold all of our country's environmental laws that help safeguard our forests, water, and wildlife -- not suspend them.

-- Mandate that the Forest Service use scarce resources to mechanically reduce dangerous fuel around homes and communities and along major roads -- not in the backcountry -- and use management-ignited fires elsewhere to reduce fuels. This will ensure that priority is given to protecting people's lives and property, not timber corporations' profits.

-- Ensure that all mechanical fuels reduction projects target the small trees and brush that pose the biggest fire threat, not the large trees that pose the least threat. Logging of larger trees can often result in a greater risk of catastrophic fire later.

What you can do

Please call Senator Feinstein's office at (415) 393-0707 and ask her to be an advocate for responsible forest and fire management. Below are points that may help when calling but please use your own words. Personal comments are the most effective!

-- When addressing fire management issues, please make sure that the Senate safeguards our environmental laws and focuses its work on encouraging the removal of small trees and brush near communities.

-- Please do not reduce legal protections for old-growth forests, roadless areas, and other critical areas. Thank you for tackling this important issue.

Thank you very much for your help. For more information, please contact Keith Hammond at (530) 758-0380, or at keith@calwild.org