Raising Funds for National Forests

“America’s Eroding Atolls of Nature” (Nov. 3) grossly misrepresents our club’s annual, one-day, off-highway motorcycle Enduro in the San Bernardino National Forest. It incorrectly states that American Honda Motor Co. is the promoter of the Enduro. American Honda has nothing to do with the Enduro, other than providing trash bags that the club distributes to all participants. The Enduro is not a “stampede” but a time and distance event similar to a car rally. The article ignores all that goes into managing the activity so that what impacts occur only occur on designated and managed off-highway routes, and that the course and camping area are left spotlessly clean. The pictured stream crossing is an impassable river that scours the creek bed each winter. The article incorrectly insinuates that the Enduro creek crossing is the site of 800-year-old artifacts.

Profits from the annual Enduro are donated to the Forest Assn.’s off-highway vehicle volunteer program and to the Pediatric Brain Tumor Foundation. The Checkpoint club has performed volunteer work in the forest for 13 years.

DANA BELL, President

Checkpoint Enduro Motorcycle

Club, Long Beach

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Forest Service bureaucrats, corporate vultures and a Congress without a clue--your story has it all. Why is it OK for corporations to buy control of national forests they abuse for profit?

What’s really galling is that while hundreds of millions of dollars are routinely lost on below-cost federal timber sales, Congress refuses to spend the pittance needed to make sure our national forests are available to all our citizens while protecting the health and diversity of the land. The stealth privatization of our national forest will diminish our natural heritage and rob future generations of the solace of the wild earth.

BILL CORCORAN

Public Lands Conservation

Assistant, Angeles Chapter

Sierra Club

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Just last month in Santa Barbara County the Forest Service expended $8 million to extinguish a 4,000-acre back country brush fire that threatened no structures. This fire was burning in 50-year-old chaparral, a fire-adapted ecosystem. A more sensible policy of fire management and controlled burns, coupled with expanded Conservation Corps-contructed urban fire breaks, would free money for recreation services, enhance the environment and provide needed jobs for young persons.

CHARLES VARNI, Director

Santa Maria Valley Water

Conservation District