FIGHTING FOR THE FORESTS

Trees, jobs, and profits--these were fighting words across the country last week as industry, environmental and political groups fought over the future of huge tracts of forest land that lie before the logger's axe. Fights are inevitable when the economic interests of the present collide with the desire to preserve ecosystems for the future. But one of the surprising lessons of the bruising battles over the environment in the past few years is that green sentiment is again a powerful political force. That's why Alaska Senator Frank Murkowski failed to ram through legislation that would have facilitated timber cutting in the...