WASHINGTON - May 4 - The Administration’s budget proposals for restoring forest ecosystems and reducing fire risks to rural communities are too low, according to nonprofit environmental group American Forests’ analysis. In recent testimony to the House Interior Appropriations Subcommittee, AMERICAN FORESTS, the oldest national nonprofit conservation organization, is urging Congress to dramatically increase the amount of funding for collaborative local efforts to thin forests and reduce fuel loads around communities threatened by wildfire.

American Forests’ testimony responds to the Administration’s Fiscal Year (FY) 2005 funding proposals for the Healthy Forest Restoration Act (HFRA), which passed Congress late last year after long, intense debate. HFRA sets up key expectations that federal agencies will accomplish a significant amount of hazardous fuel reduction around communities that face wildfire threats--the HFRA authorizes up to 20 million acres--and that a local, collaborative process will be used to plan, prioritize, and implement these projects. A critical part of the bipartisan compromise that enabled the Act’s passage was an authorization of $760 million per year for the fuel reduction projects and for new mechanisms for local collaboration, such as community wildfire protection plans and multiparty monitoring.

A Bush Administration press release states that the President’s FY 2005 budget includes $760 million for his “Healthy Forests Initiative,” and the HFRA. But the total proposed for hazardous fuel reduction for the Forest Service and Bureau of Land Management (BLM) is only 60 percent. Of equal concern is a lack of clear direction and funding for the Forest Service and Bureau of Land Management (BLM) to work with local communities on wildfire protection plans and multiparty monitoring.

For fiscal year 2005, the Administration is proposing to treat nearly 4 million acres. Even if $760 million were available for fuel reduction activities, this would still be less than $200 per acre—an amount that is significantly below the cost of environmentally sensitive thinning projects in the West. American Forests is concerned that the Administration has set unrealistic expectations for what the federal agencies can accomplish with this funding, and that these expectations might drive some resource managers to design projects that may over-harvest valuable trees to help pay for the costs of treatment.

“The HFRA is one of the most significant forest bills to pass Congress in the last twenty years,” says Gerald Gray, American Forests Vice President for Policy. “It established some ambitious and lofty goals, but a lack of sufficient federal investment in this initial year will greatly hinder efforts by both the agencies and the communities to begin meeting these goals. Even worse, it could break the public trust among the many diverse interests established during the debate of the HFRA.”

The costs of hazardous fuel reduction projects are difficult to estimate, varying significantly from place to place, based on the forest type and conditions, location, and the types of treatment (e.g., thinning, brush disposal, prescribed burning). These costs are particularly high in “wildland-urban interface” areas where communities border forests or people choose to build their homes in forests—priority areas for fuel reduction treatments under the HFRA.

“We would like to see Congress make a significant increase in the funding for hazardous fuel reduction with clear recognition that a portion of those funds is intended to support local collaboration efforts,” says Gray. “ Federal funding should be seen as an investment in reducing wildfire risks and restoring the ability of these forest ecosystems to function well, sustain themselves, and provide ecological services for society. We believe the $760 million authorized by Congress for these activities would be a good starting point.”

AMERICAN FORESTS helps people improve the environment with trees and forests. The organization is a world leader in tree planting for environmental restoration, a pioneer in advancing the science and practice of urban forestry and a primary communicator of the benefits of trees and forests. AMERICAN FORESTS helps people identify, recognize and preserve their special trees, and its community based initiatives help people plan and implement local actions to restore and maintain healthy ecosystems and communities. American Forests is online at www.americanforests.org.

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