Draft GPUS Platform Amendment Forestry

Section title: Forestry

Section subtitle: Preserving our forests for future generations

Our position: Greens aim to preserve our forests and the wildlife that live there, and to increase the amount of forested land.

Nature’s green cover is essential to sustaining life on the planet. Part of our stewardship of Nature is protection and sustaining the world’s forests. The cutting of rain forests for lumber and clearing forests for agriculture in many parts of the world threatens the climate and environmental health the planet. Multi-national corporations have little or no regard for their stewardship obligation.

Green Solutions

1. Overhaul state and U.S. Forest Service rules to empower them to protect and use our forests to ensure their sustainability. Forests are a renewable resource that will not be renewable if not properly protected.

2. Prohibit logging roads, paid for by taxpayers, in forests that have been declared wilderness.

3. Ban any harvesting of Ancient Forests.

4. Tax the sale of raw wood, pulp, chips, carts, slabs abroad to restore the making of wood products here in America. and restore the jobs to make them.

5. Subsidize local watershed-based mills.

6. Use goats or sheep grazing to control undergrowth rather than herbicides.

7. Support indigenous forest people and protect their gathering practices for food and medicine.

8. Halt the destruction of rain forests in third world countries and forgive the debts of those countries.

9. Require labeling that identifies the nature of and origin of lumber products.