The Healthy Forest Act gets much needed upgrade.

The U.S. Forest Service unveiled in December its landmark update to the 1976 National Forest Management Act after years of hard work and public comment. The new regulations are Part II of President Bush's promise to “fix” our broken forest system-the first being the Healthy Forest Act passed by a bipartisan Congress in 2003. The new rules inject some modern science into a creaky law, finally giving local forest managers thee ability to respond quickly and flexibly to emerging forest threats.

As for the green complaints that this will loosen protection-quite the opposite. For the first time, the U.S. Forest Service will require independent audits of whether plans are meeting stated goals, which means local managers are accountable for performance. For the first time, local communities will be involved in setting those goals, as well as their updates.

The proof is in the facts that show the old politically correct rules weren't working. The Government Accountability Office estimates that “one in three” forest acres is dead or dying. This has contributed to a deadly new age of wildfires that devastated species and sterilized the soil. As for wildlife, figures show we've recovered a pathetic “12 of the 1300 species” we've listed for protection over the past 30 years.

This is not success, it is total failure.

The rules governing forest plans under the National Forest Management Act date back to l982 and were designed to manage forests in an era of timber harvesting. At the peak of the logging boom in 1987, federal land provided some 14 billion board feet of timber annually, or 25% to 30% of U.S. timber use. Today, timber harvesting is a miniscule aspect of forest management, and federal lands currently provide less than two billion board feet, or 3% to 5% of national use.

Partly because of logging reductions, forests face grave new threats. Disease kills off wild lands and invasive species strangle native species. Fire consumes millions of acres each year as well as homes and lives. Those 1982 rules were incapable of dealing with such immediate threats. The old system, geared toward timber harvests, demanded sweeping management plans that took an average of seven years to complete and cost millions of dollars each.

The new regulations continue the Bush policy of putting environmental policy back at the local level. Managers of each of the nation's 155 national forests and 20 grasslands now must adopt an “environmental management system.” EMSs have been a standard in the private sector and other countries for years, but lacking at our federal level. In the future, big revisions will take only a year or two at far less cost to the tax payer.

I realize that none of this is very appealing to some national environmental groups, which prefer forest decisions to be mandated in Washington-a place where they wield more influence. Many of these folks hold a near-religious belief that man should stay out of forests altogether.

But, whether you're a bird-watcher, hiker, skier, fishing or jogging enthusiast, take heart, these new regulations will make for a better environmental future for all of us.

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