Stop the Sale of America's Natural Heritage
- by: Sierra Club
- recipient: US Senator Harry Reid; Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi
The Bush Administration has made several proposals to dismantle our National forests by selling off thousands of acres - a move that would only benefit the administration's friends in the timber industry, coal interests and Big Oil. Adding insult to injury, YOU - the American taxpayer - are being forced to fund the destruction!
Despite its National Geographic Traveler's ranking as one of the "50 Places of a Lifetime," wildlife areas next to Superior National Forest's Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness have been targeted for clear-cut logging.
The Forest Service also proposed to fill up to 5,500 logging trucks with trees from the Daniel Boone National Forest - even though it will damage the water supply for more than 80,000 Kentuckians.
These are just a couple of the latest in a series of gifts coming from the Bush Administration and its allies in Congress to oil, mining, timber and real estate speculators of increased access to pristine natural areas.
It has to stop. America's public lands are the nation's endowment, and they ought to be managed with long-term stewardship, not carelessly cast off to make a quick buck.
To: US Senator Harry Reid; Speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi
I am writing to urge you to use your power in Congress to put an end to the outrageous plans of the Bush Administration to dismantle protections for our National Forests and sell off our public lands. As a nation we must protect the ancient and wild forests that are left within our National Forests from logging and other destructive development. More than 95% of America's ancient forests are already gone. We must do everything possible to preserve what little remains for future generations.
President Bush and his allies' shortsighted plans are a bad deal for the American people. They will allow special interests to destroy some of our greatest natural treasures, and I urge you to stop them so that American taxpayers like me are not forced to subsidize these efforts.
I implore you to stop these reckless plans and policies and protect our irreplaceable wild & ancient forests.
