FORESTS: Keep wilderness wild

Governor Otter is urging his Republican cronies — members of the most anti-environmental Congress in history — to concoct legislation that would give control of the national forests to the governor and his legislature.

Otter wants to enrich Idaho and the corporate interests by destroying our last roadless forests — the very heart and soul of this great wilderness state — reducing them to an endless maze of logging roads and stumps. Creating fear of fire is a deceitful pretext to this end.

Despite Otter’s (and the Idaho congressional delegation’s) anthropocentric propaganda, dead trees are as important to vibrant forests as living trees because, among other things, they enrich the soil that enables them to flourish.

Most forest fires start in cut-over forests, primarily because of human access, the greatest cause of forest fires. Old growth forests are fire resistant due, in part, to their dampness and inaccessibility.

These priceless forests will become more valuable with each passing year, benefitting the air we breathe, water, wildlife, climate and combatting global warming, in ways that are far from being understood. They stand as defiant symbols of the right of all Americans, including the unborn, to experience untrampled nature — one of the richest, most beautiful dimensions of life.

Teddy Roosevelt established the national forests for the people, protecting them from robber barons and opportunists — and the same kind of attacks against their integrity and the public good that Otter proposes.

FREDERICK K. BARDELLI

Osburn