50 years of protection.

This is a press release regarding the timber industry and state officials in Washington. I'll let it speak for itself.

Federal and Wash. state officials are considering a plan called the Forests and Fish plan that calls for setting aside 5% of the state's forestland from logging in exchange for protecting the timber industry for 50 years against Endangered Species Act prosecutions for killing or harming endangered salmon.

The plan covers more than 9 million acres, about one-fifth of the state. It would be the largest such deal in the West, reports the Seattle Post-Intelligencer.

Hailed by the timber industry, government officials, and some tribes, the plan was criticized by independent scientists, environmentalists and other tribes when it was unveiled five years ago.

In the months ahead, federal officials will decide how to transform it into a "habitat conservation" plan, a way to legally allow industries to kill and harm protected animals in exchange for taking specified steps to help the species in other ways.

Those steps include major increases in the size of streamside tree buffers that shade and cool waterways, fixing some logging roads that bleed stream-smothering silt, and more-careful reviews when loggers turn their attention to landslide-prone mountainsides.

Critics of the plan say the pact has to be made better for fish and wildlife if the timber industry is to get a half-century of legal protection, the newspaper reported. Environmentalists who panned the pact originally now are trying to make its provisions more protective. They and independent scientists have criticized the plan because it relies on an ongoing series of studies to justify its scientific basis.

The industry has indicated it is willing to accept even tighter restrictions if scientists say it is necessary to protect fish.

"Part of the real benefit of this agreement is that there is going to be a serious scientific process that dictates whether changes on the ground are necessary," said Bill Wilkerson, executive director of the Washington Forest Protection Association. "We can live with the fact that that may occur, as long as it's serious science."

Backers of the plan point out that although one of its goals is to protect fish, another is to protect Washington's timber industry.

Wow. That would be a major shift in policy. Actually relying on hard science before implementing restrictions on timber harvesting. I can understand environmentalists getting nervous about a move like this. It severely reduces their influence into the timber harvesting process for the next few decades.
As a member of the timber industry myself I would have to say that this is a welcome development. My only fear is that, like so many other things, this could politically morph into something that's not good for the industry OR the environment. We'll have to wait and see.
Also, I'm wondering who "independent scientists" are? Aren't you?