Recently, there has been considerable concern among environmental groups over the Bush administration’s elimination of the Roadless Area Conservation Rule and the opening of some of the previously roadless areas of the national forest system to the building of roads and the harvesting of timber.

As a fairly liberal Democrat, I cringe at most of President Bush’s environmental policies. However, there is a groundless fear common among environmentalists (and much of the general public) that, through logging and road building, we are rapidly losing pristine areas of our national forests, trading wildlife diversity and recreational opportunity for short-sighted economic gain.

In fact, the road system in our national forests has been shrinking rather dramatically for some time. Over the past several years, while creating approximately 150 miles of new road per year on national forest land, the U.S. Forest Service has decommissioned over 10,000 miles of national forest roads – nearly 14 miles for every mile of new road constructed.

When a road in the national forest is decommissioned, it is not simply left to “decay,” silting streams and causing mudslides.

The following is a description from the U.S. Forest Service of the road decommissioning process: “Remove culverts, mulch stream banks, and construct access barrier. Where necessary, pull back fill, scarify road surface, place erosion control blankets, fertilize and/or seed with native seed.”

Roads in the national forest allow access for recreation, firefighting equipment and, yes, commercial logging. Commercial logging, done right, is beneficial to the overall health of the forest. Scientific timber harvesting thins overcrowded trees and results in a forest less susceptible to insects, diseases and drought – all of which can lead to the tragic fires which destroy trees, wildlife habitat and watersheds, and threaten lives and property.

The spotted owl controversy of the Pacific Northwest brought the perceived conflict between logging and environmentalism into the public spotlight. It also resulted in the loss of 30,000 forest jobs in Washington state alone, and destroyed a time-honored way of life for thousands of logging families.

Now, new studies report that despite the attempt to protect millions of acres of its habitat by closing it to timber harvesting, the spotted owl’s numbers continue to decline. Biologists who study the owl now believe that other factors, including West Nile virus, the encroachment of the barred owl into its habitat, and the loss of its favored trees to sudden oak disease, may in fact have been more responsible for the species’ decline than logging.

While it is common, in an attempt to aid the preservation of our natural environment, to condemn logging in general, and logging on public lands in particular, our demand for wood products continues to grow. Statistics for new housing starts remain strong, and, despite the use of computers, we consume more paper and paper products now than ever before. To meet this demand, as commercial logging in national forests has declined (from 12 billion board feet harvested annually in the late 1980s to 1.7 billion board feet harvested annually today), pressure on privately owned land has increased. Is the stripping, sale and commercial development of private land a lesser environmental crime than a well-managed harvest on public land?

In addition to the pressure put on private lands in the U.S., there has been a steep increase in the importation of pulp from other countries for the manufacture of paper products, including from countries in South America, where regulations on timber cutting lag far behind those in the United States, putting irreplaceable rain forests in jeopardy. It doesn’t make sense. In the temperate forests of the United States, we have ample renewable timber resources to meet our demand, yet over-regulation forces the importation of wood products from, and the destruction of, fragile tropical forests.

As Gene Francisco, retired chief state forester of Wisconsin, writes in a publication of the American Loggers Council, “The fact is, in this country it doesn’t require much sacrifice to be an environmentalist. … It doesn’t seem right that we always go to someone else’s backyard for the wood products we consume so freely … As a country we need to focus our attention and our energy on finding solutions to balance our desire for unspoiled wildlands with our habits and lifestyles.”

Balance is the key word. The loggers with whom I am acquainted here in Maine understand very well the concepts of renewable resources and timber stand improvement. They are responsible stewards of the forest because it represents their livelihood and because they are also hikers, hunters, fishermen and true environmentalists.

There is a long tradition of conservation here in Maine, and logging is as much a part of the character of our state, and as steeped in tradition and lore, as hunting, fishing, skiing, hiking or any other recreational use of our forests.

Amy Chapman is the co-owner of Finestkind Land Management Inc., a logging company in western Maine. She lives in Greenwood.