The environmental policies of the Bush administration are endangering our nation’s woodlands, according to a coalition of environmental groups that yesterday released a list of the 10 most at-risk forests. The coalition, which included Greenpeace and the National Forest Protection Alliance, assessed the risks posed to water quality, endangered species, and old-growth trees. Citing road-building and timber sales as major threats to forest health, the groups strongly criticized President Bush’s championing of logging projects in the name of limiting forest fires — a move most environmentalists see as a giveaway to the timber industry. According to the group, the 10 most endangered forests are Arizona’s Apache-Sitgreaves, Bitterroot and Kootenai in Montana, Black Hills in South Dakota, Wisconsin’s Chequemegan-Nicolet, Virginia’s George Washington-Jefferson, all of Mississippi’s national forests, California’s Plumas, Alaska’s Tongass, and Oregon’s Umpqua.
