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3. Secretary Espy, 9 December 1993 



foreign country may harbor organisms that could potentially devastate West 

 Coast forests and our timber industry, they must all be treated. 



B. Sustainable forestry in Russia: Having experienced the negative consequences of 

 logging the forests of the Pacific Northwest beyond their sustainable limits, the U.S. should 

 help other timber-producing regions develop their resources along more rational lines. We 

 should assist Russia, for example, in developing forest management techniques that are 

 compatible with their boreal, taiga ecosystems. Assistance in ecosystem management and 

 sustainable economic development would be consistent with the goals of the U.S. 

 Government, which are to help Russia improve and stabilize its economy. Since the 

 C>cpartmcnt of Agriculture, through its log-permitting activities, is in a position to facilitate 

 these national goals, we urge you to consider the following consequences of unrestricted 

 logging in Siberia: 



1. Qcarcutting, road construction, and habitat desuuction in the United States 

 have led to losses of species, productivity, natural ecosystems, and industries, 

 and to the impoverishment of timber-dependent communities. The same has 

 occurred in Siberia and is likely to worsen. Timber companies, both foreign and 

 U.S., that are now positioning themselves to log these forests are proposing to 

 use the same clearcutting techniques that the U.S. Forest Service is now rejecting. 

 These techniques were inappropriate for the forests of the U.S.; they are even 

 more inappropriate for the forests of Russia. The high-latitude forests of the 

 Russian taiga are slow-growing and often underlain by permafrost Large-scale 

 removal of the protective thermal blanket of vegetation causes melting of the 

 ground and the creation of muddy swamps and permanent lakes. Melting of the 

 permafrost may also lead to decomposition of vast amounts of organic matter 

 stored in the frozen taiga soils and the release of methane, a greenhouse gas, into 

 the atmosphere. 



Without proper logging metliods, many harvested areas will never reforest; those 

 forests that do regenerate will grow slowly and have long rotation periods. These 

 climatic conditions and ecosystem responses must be factored into management 

 plans before the United States encourages the logging of taiga forests by allowing 

 the importation of these logs. 



2. The export of raw or minimally processed logs from Siberia to America will 

 lead to the same economic and social problems in Siberia that are currentiy being 

 experienced by small timber-dependent communities in the United States. The 

 people of Siberia will receive few benefits from the export of raw logs and will be 

 prevented from developing stable economies or communities. We should help 

 this new nation develop by encouraging forest managers to build lumber mills and 

 process their wood into value-added products. 



C. Endangerment of Siberian forest-dependent species. The rare Siberian tiger has 

 been reduced to a population size that may be as low as 250-300 animals in the wild. 

 Numbers of these tigers will continue to decline as the forests are logged. In fact, one U.S. 

 timber company has requested permission to log an area that Russian scientists have long 

 been seeking to have designated as a nature preserve. Even though the former Soviet Union 

 and the current Russian government have had neither the commitment nor the resources to 

 protect this area, the United States should not accelerate the rate of loss of these ureplaceable 

 resources by letting companies take advantage of Russia's cuirent problems. Instead, the 

 U.S. should encourage Russia to establish reserves and protect their rare species. Siberian 

 tiger, spotted deer, musk deer, and the Himalayan black bear are only a few of the species 

 that may be threatened by unregulated timber harvesting. 



