I have lived in Payson, Arizona, for almost 10 years. Payson is a small town of about fifteen thousand, and is around forty miles southwest of Heber-Overgaard/Show Low-- the scene of last year's horrific Rodeo-Chediski fire. Payson was the evacuation center for refugees (human and animal), and is itself surrounded by the Tonto National Forest, which is adjacent to the Prescott, Coconino and Sitgreaves National Forests. All of these federally-run forests are right now made up of about a third to a half or more bark-beetle-killed trees--i.e. a huge pile of standing dead kindling in danger of igniting a la Rodeo-Chediski, and the horrid conflagrations now ravaging Southern California.

In addition to the thousands of acres of dead trees, the entire national forest in this area is clogged with hot-burning manzanita undergrowth, and also horridly and unhealthily overgrown with way too many trees per acre. We have as many as 2000-4000 trees per acre, whereas a healthy, conflagration-resistant forest would have around 250 or so trees per acre.

Widely spaced, healthy trees, with mostly grassy undergrowth is how the forest used to be before the anti-logging eco-wackos persuaded federal judges that, essentially, no twig must be broken, no standing dead trees can be cut, all logging is evil, and every human intercession in the forest must be totally eliminated. The result of this policy is that literally thousands of jobs in rural America have been lost, and we are now in mor- tal danger of losing many rural towns to runaway wildfires, just as many California rural towns are now burning, or are in danger or burning.

Before I moved to Payson, I lived in South Laguna Beach, California, where I barely survived the horrible Laguna Beach fire, which came within a mile of my house. Since then, I have tried to research as much as possible the issues of forest fires and the his- tory of the national forests in America.

Here are some highlights of my research--findings which many people don't know about and which those persons reading Mr. Lopez's article need to be aware of and under- stand their meaning and significance:

Finding #1:

The original charter for the national forests in America was specifically for the purpose of providing a reliable source of timber (a renewable resource) for the American people. Clear-cutting was a form of logging that has long since been replaced by selective log- ging, but which itself has been almost completely stopped throughout all national for- ests--stopped by environmental legislation and judicial decisions obtained through po- litical pressures applied and litigation initiated by the environmental extremists. So these days, because of enviro-wacko-promoted legislation and enviro-wacko-sought court decisions, we're now importing timber from other countries, while U.S. forests burn, instead of being properly logged and harvested by private American logging in- terests.

Finding #2:

Until the U.S. Forest Service came into being, America's national forests were healthy. They were managed by private interests, were grazed by ranchers, and rarely had the kind of horrific conflagration from which we are now suffering. For much information on this, see the excellently researched book, Looking Through the Smoke, by Arizona au- thor Jynx Pyle. This book has been officially admitted as evidence into the U.S. Congressional Record.

Finding #3:

The assertion that we need to preserve "Old Growth" is a bogus claim. Now that the forests are clogged with way too many trees, "old growth" trees are often spindly little things that have no room to flourish, since there are now too many trees growing in the enviro-wacko forests of Steve Lopez's lurid fantasies.

Finding #4:

The U.S. General Accounting Office (GAO) has released the following facts regarding the inestimable damage done by environmental extremists--damage that has DIRECT- LY led to the present catastrophic fires in California and many fires in other areas of the country, damage that continues to put my community and many other rural American communities in ongoing danger:

59% of eligible forest thinning projects in the U.S. were appealed in FY2001 and FY2002.

52% of eligible forest thinning projects proposed near communities in the Wildland-Urban Interface were appealed in FY2001 and FY2002.

Environmental appeals were found to be overwhelmingly without merit, as 161 of 180 challenges were thrown out during FY2001 and FY2002.

66% of all eligible forest fuels reduction activities were appealed in the state of California during FY2001 and FY2002.

Appeals delayed thinning projects by at least 120 days in FY2001 and FY2002.

For more on the GAO's full report, see:

http://www.sierratimes.com/03/10/30/article_ca.htm

Finding #5:

The true agenda of many socalled "environmentalists" is actually an extremist goal of "rewilding" over 50% of the United States, and removing all us "evil" humans to "hu- man islands" (i.e., urban ghettos). The name of this extremist goal of the ecological nut cases is The Wildlands Project. On its official web site, the objective of The Wildlands Project is stated goal as follows:

"…we live for the day when Grizzlies in Chihuahua have an unbroken connection to Grizzlies in Alaska; when Gray Wolf populations are continuous from New Mexico to Greenland; when vast unbroken forests and flowing plains again thrive and support pre-Columbian populations of plants and animals...." (The Wildlands Project goal statement)

Dave Forman, founder of the ecoterrorist organization, Earth First, and board member of the Sierra Club, puts it this way:

"Does all the foregoing mean that Wild Earth and The Wildlands Project advo- cate the end of industrial civilization? Most assuredly. Everything civilized must go." - Dave Forman

For a list of some of the organizations supporting this radical "rural-cleansing" agenda, see:

http://www.therockerbox.com/extremists.htm

Many socalled "environmentalist" groups are on this list, including the Sierra Club, with whose Arizona representative, Sandy Bahr, I have personally spoken. When I asked Ms. Bahr over a year ago about the Sierra Club's position on all of the bark- beetle-killed trees, and what the solution was, her sole response was: "We need rain." The Sierra Club opposes cutting down the dead trees in the forest, using the excuse that it will "harm the forest floor"--the very same forest floor that is now destroyed by runa- way conflagrations in California and other states.

And how rain alone is supposed to resuscitate DEAD trees is beyond me, but this is a prime example of the true forest "expertise" of Ms. Bahr and her organization.

However, when one realizes that the present catastrophic fires are literally burning out, burning down, and evacuating rural California, and that forest conditions in rural Arizo- na and other states are similarly threatening humans living there, one can see that these giant fires actually serve the nefarious goals of those promoting The Wildlands Project. They're happy to burn down the entire forest if that means getting us hated hu- mans out of the way. They're happy to torch the habitats of millions of innocent animals, and murder these poor critters most horribly through wildfire if the desired "rural cleansing" can be achieved.

As Forman says, "Everything civilized must go."

Steve Lopez and his trashing of California Congressman Richard Pombo as well as the Healthy Forests Act indicate that either Lopez is utterly ignorant of any history or truth about our national forests, or he is a deliberate and dangerous mouthpiece for murder- ous ecoterrorists like Forman.

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