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Prepared Statement of James E. Loesel 



Mr. Chairman, members of the subcommitee, I appreciate the opportunity to appear 

 before this subcommittee to present comments on the Southern Appalachian Assessment 

 My name is James Loesel, and I am presenting testimony on behalf of the Southern 

 Appalachian Forest Coalition 



This coalition consists of national groups (Association of Forest Service Employees for 

 Environmental Ethics, Sierra Club, and the Wilderness Society), regional groups 

 (Chattooga River Watershed Coalition, Southern Appalachian Biodiversity Project and the 

 Southern Environmental Law Center), and Forest-wide groups (Georgia Forest Watch, 

 Cherokee Voices, and the Citizens Task Force on National Forest Management). We 

 formed this coalition two years ago because the member organizations believe that the 

 national forests in the Southern Appalachians need to be managed with a view toward 

 protecting the natural heritage values of the eco-region as a whole, not merely on a forest- 

 by forest basis. We also saw that many of the decisions affecting the management of these 

 Forests are made at a regional_ level and it is, therefore, necessary to organize across the 

 boundaries to have input on these decisions Accordingly, the view I express today is 

 derived from the experiences of member groups across the Southern Appalachians from 

 Virginia through North and South Carolina, Tennessee, and Georgia to Alabama. 



We believe the Forest Service will provide basic information to the six basic questions 

 asked by the subcommitee. In our testimony we will concentrate on two of the questions 

 about which we can provide additional information. 



Question 3: the relationship of the assessment to the forest plans in the South and the 

 applicability of the assessment to other lands. 



The Southern Appalachian Forest Coalition favors the expeditious revision of Forest 

 Plans. Some of our members worked intensively on the revision of the George 

 Washington National Forest Plan, completed three years ago and on the significant 

 amendment of the Pisgah/Nantahala Plan, completed two years ago Some of our 

 members have participated in the initiation of revision for the Jefferson National Forest 

 three years ago We have urged the Forest Service to proceed revising the Plans for the 

 Alabama, Chattahoochee, Cherokee, and Sumter National Forests. These Plans are a 

 decade old, and under NFMA are ripe for revision 



However, for a Forest Plan revision to succeed, there must be updated and relevant 

 information available to compile the Assessment of Management Situation, one of the 

 early steps in the planning process Planning is impossible without basic information about 

 the supply and demand for Forest resources, updated Forest resource inventories, status of 

 Forest health, changing demographics of Forest users, condition of streams and air, and 

 the distribution of rare and common plants and animals. The Forests in the Southern 

 Appalachians did not have this information base available and it did not appear likely they 

 would have the resources available to compile this information separately. 



