UN controls US forest thinning?
 

Arizona is one of the states that thinning of the forests, which is a side issue with the new roads and deforestation law is a big deal so i've read a bit on it.

If i understand this correctly, congress is looking to repeal or change some of Clinton's ban on new roads and deforestation - in reality returning the decision making to the state level again. there are a few variations of how this would work floating around with support from different groups.

This article seems to say that it doesn't really matter what the US government decides to do - the UN's ITTA agreement would prevent the US from building new roads and thinning the timberlands.

Is it really a good idea to allow the UN to dictate what we do within our borders?

Link

The UN is an organization to facilitate international treaties. If the US has agreed to ITTA, then it's a good idea to abide by it. The UN can't dictate what we do - it's up to us whether we abide by treaties we sign.

The UN has already tried to enforce some of their mandates on the southern borders. I'll see if I can find the referrences.

Here is what they are using: Agenda 21

"Agenda 21 is a comprehensive plan of action to be taken globally, nationally and locally by organizations of the United Nations System, Governments, and Major Groups in every area in which human impacts on the environment.

Agenda 21, the Rio Declaration on Environment and Development, and the Statement of principles for the Sustainable Management of Forests were adopted by more than 178 Governments at the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED) held in Rio de Janerio, Brazil, 3 to 14 June 1992.

The Commission on Sustainable Development (CSD) was created in December 1992 to ensure effective follow-up of UNCED, to monitor and report on implementation of the agreements at the local, national, regional and international levels. It was agreed that a five year review of Earth Summit progress would be made in 1997 by the United Nations General Assembly meeting in special session.

The full implementation of Agenda 21, the Programme for Further Implementation of Agenda 21 and the Commitments to the Rio principles, were strongly reaffirmed at the World Summit on Sustainable Development (WSSD) held in Johannesburg, South Africa from 26 August to 4 September 2002."

The most they can do is tell us we aren't living up to out treaty obligations. It's not like we'll be seeing blue helmets in the forests and on the borders.

i understand that. i just find it irritating that the US continues to sign agreements with the UN that may not be in the best interest of the US.

Why do you think that UN forces are being trained here in America?

All treaties are give and take - not in the best interests of anyone, but in the good interests of everyone, hopefully. Environmental issues have longer term and more difficult to measure payoff than many other issues, but the people who signed the treaty considered it to be in the interests of the US.

Bush does not seem to be happy with the idea of abiding by treaties his predecessors signed, and he has shown willingness to break them when he can, so you may get your wish. Unfortunately, it is at the cost of US diplomatic credibility.

You mean with all the stuff Bush and Company has done, we still have some left to lose?

Environmental issues are of long term importance to everyone. One of the reasons we are having issues with flooding is deforestation and the loss of watershed through aggressive, poorly planned development. If too much green goes, all we'll have left to breathe is CO2.

We promise not to cut too many of our trees and they promise not to cut too many of theirs and hopefully we all get to survive. The real issue is in poor countries with no real internal enforcement.

GWB is a shortsighted fool in a lot of ways, but it seems most striking in his environmental policies.

I notice that your original article calls this a PROPOSED amendment, so first the UN itself is going to have to write it up (if it decideds to), and then the US would have to sign and agree to follow the UN manadate. I find it extremely hard to imagine that ever happening. The USFS has gone hand in hand with big logging concerns from day one. US forests are already, if anything over harvested, not under. This is especially true in the arid west where trees simply don't grow back at the rate they do in the Pacific Northwest and the South. The timber industry would scream bloody murder if ANY administration, either Republican or Democrat were to even attempt to do something that might cut into their profits. I wouldn't loose any sleep over it, Lookout.

and if we have no thinning like the policies have required in recent years, states like arizona will continue to lose hundreds of thousands of acres each year to uncontrollable wild fires. walking through the forests in arizona it is easy to see why the state loses more and more forest each year - dead trees lie where they fall, areas with dieing trees choke out the new growth underneath waiting for the next lightening strike or whatever the catalyst may be this time. when it starts, it is difficult to stop.

i don't support unregulated stripping of the timberland but the idea that we are helping the environment by keeping a hands off policy is mistaken.

i couldn't speak to CO's condition, but in arizona, which is extremely arid (but it's a dry heat :) ) the problem is that there is too much fuel for a fire. once it starts, there is little chance of stopping or diverting it.

Actually, the problem is far more about fire management than it is about timber sales. The logging companies are not interested in those dead, fallen trees (timber slash). The ones on the ground are usually in no condition to use for commercial lumber. What has happened under current fire suppression techniques is that slash has been allowed to accumulate far beyond whatever it would in a forest that was not being subjected to fire management. The policy of putting out every possible fire has had the effect of allowing too much dead fuel to accumulate, and when it finally catches fire, it catches good. That why the FS has started doing controlled burns throughout the West.

The FS has anything but a no thinning policy. It has banned the wide spread clear cutting of stands of timber in the West, but it still does what is called Timber Stand Improvement. Crews of forestry techs spend the better part of 7 or 8 months each year (they stop when the snow flies) cruising and marking forests for selective logging.

Arizona was once largely natural grass land, btw. It has become desertified by over grazing and over logging. A study of the climatological data over the past 100 years bears this out. 100 years ago Arizona was both slightly cooler and slightly wetter than it is now. Arizona's forests should NEVER have been subjected to either commercial timber sales or artificial fire suppression. The result is what you see today.