Letters to the Editor: Political expediency, science don't go together

Have you ever heard the phrase, "putting the cart before the horse?"

It means you are getting ahead of yourself, and it applies perfectly to the chief of the U.S. Forest Service, Mike Dombeck.

Dombeck's agency is in the midst of a multiyear study of the southern forests. The study, called the Southern Forest Resource Assessment, is a huge undertaking, involving the U.S. Forest Service, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, and several other regional and state-level agencies.

For years, some in the environmental community have been saying the South's forests are threatened this is our chance to find out if they are right. The assessment, long overdue in my mind, will provide us with one of the most detailed studies of forests in the South.

And believe me, if the long-term sustainability of forests anywhere in the south is threatened, nobody wants to know more than the forest products industry. The forests are where we live and work; the forests put food on our tables. The forests send our children to college and pay our doctor's bills and mortgages. We love and respect the forests so much, we decided to spend our whole lives there, making careers in the woods. If there is something wrong in the forests, we want to know.

That is why we fully support the Southern Forest Resource Assessment. It is why we as an industry are committed to a partnership with the agencies, sharing our data and vast experiences with researchers. It is why we want to see this research conducted thoroughly and honestly.

We thought we would finally see eye-to-eye with even the most radical elements of the environmental community because, surely, they want the study to be thorough and honest, too. Right? Shockingly, that does not appear to be the case.

Members of the environmental left, longtime critics of the forest products industry, are now turning their sights on recreationalists and private landowners.

Despite the fact the study is not yet completed (or even close to completion at this point), they are out making a lot of noise, claiming the study is saying things it simply is not saying. There is no evidence that the South's forests are threatened by the forest products industry. In fact, it is the industry that sees to it that forests remain as forests. That is the very definition of long-term sustainability a principle to which we are totally dedicated.

The greatest threat to a tract of forestland is the lure of alternative uses, conversion to agricultural use or commercial development. Drive the industry and recreationalists from the forest, and the private landowner has less incentive to keep his forest as a forest. Private landowners account for 85 percent of forestland in Missouri. The figure for the South overall is 90 percent.

Most alarming of all is whom the environmental fringe has secured as their new spokesman. Apparently, it is Chief Dombeck. Dombeck is beginning to echo these environmental radicals and publicly state that the forest products industry is overharvesting the South and that the forests are indeed threatened. Dombeck makes no reference to the vast study now being conducted by his own agency.

The study, which is to use the best science and data available to determine if there is a problem in our forests, is apparently irrelevant to Dombeck. He has made up his mind already and the researchers can go home.

His comments are at best puzzling, at worst irresponsible. That the environmental left would exploit Dombeck's comments for their own political gain is not surprising, but we should be able to expect more from the chief of the forest service.

I'm truly amazed Dombeck would put his cart so far in front of the horse. Now I'm starting to have doubts the nag will ever show up.

(Cory T. Ridenhour is the executive director of the Missouri Forest Products Association, based in Jefferson City.)