Senate Bill Would Protect Oregon's Old-Growth Trees, Promote Thinning

The Senate subcommittee on Public Lands and Forests convened in Bend Friday. It took testimony on Senator Ron Wyden's bill that would protect old-growth trees and promote forest thinning east of the Cascades. Reporter David Nogueras reports.

For decades environmental groups and the timber industry have been at loggerheads over Oregon's vast natural resources.

Senator Wyden's bill is designed to bridge the gap. The timber industry likes the bill because it allows for more logging through forest thinning. Environmentalists like it because it protects larger trees and prohibits logging near sensitive waterways.

Sean Stevens is a spokesman with the environmental group, Oregon Wild.

Sean Stevens, Oregon Wild: "This is not a piece of legislation that the timber industry would have written on their own or that that environmentalists would have written on their own. But I think what we've found is that there was enough common ground that we could both be pretty darn happy about the final product."

Some groups do have concerns about the bill, however. The Sierra Club testified against timber quotas in the legislation. Other groups oppose the prohibition of administrative appeals.

Environmental groups have used those appeals in the past to challenge logging projects in the courts.