wfn.org | Religious leaders concerned about disappearing forests

[NewsDesk <NewsDesk@UMCOM.UMC.ORG>]

Dec. 2, 1999 News media contact: Thomas S. McAnally, Nashville, Tenn. (615)
742-5470 (10-21-71B) {653}

By United Methodist News Service

Concerned about disappearing forests, particularly in the South, religious
leaders are taking their cause to Capitol Hill.

An open letter was issued Nov. 29 to U.S. Senator Ernest F. Hollings (D-SC)
urging him to help establish safeguards to "ensure sound stewardship of our
forests for future generations."

The letter is signed by 59 religious leaders, 22 of whom are United
Methodists. Citing concern over the rapid unchecked growth of chip mills and
the resulting clear cuts that feed them, the leaders invited Hollings to
"join with us in seeking to protect and sustain God's good creation." 

Among those signing the letter are members of the Commission on Religion in
Appalachia (CORA), a coalition of 18 denominations and 10 state councils of
churches from Georgia, Kentucky, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee,
Virginia and West Virginia. Other signers included chairpeople of  United
Methodist annual conference environmental justice committees in the
Southeast.  

Paz Artaza-Regan, Environmental Justice Director for the United Methodist
Church's General Board of Church and Society said the religious leaders
chose the appeal to Hollings because of his strong commitment to
conservation and his pro-environment voting record in the Senate.
Referencing words in both Christian and Jewish writings, the leaders called
for stewardship, care for the common good, and justice for creation.

"We are called to care not just for ourselves, but for the common good, to
think of the 'social mortgage' placed on all land by its Creator," the
letter said.  "Thus we need to ensure that forest policy protects the common
good across our region, and not merely the narrow interests of the few."

Artaza-Regan said the letter was prompted by public outrage over the
dramatic increase in intensive logging driven by the rapid proliferation of
the mills --- highly automated facilities that grind trees into small flakes
used in paper, pressboard, and rayon.  "In just 10 years, the number of chip
mills in the region has more than tripled to at least 150, each devouring an
average of 10,000 acres of forest a year," she said.  "Combined they
consumed more than a million acres of trees in 1998."

"God's promises are not just for tomorrow, or even the next election cycle,
but from generation to generation forever and ever," Artaza-Regan continued.
"We want to make sure that we give to our children's children a land that is
at least as full of the wonder of creation as the one we know."
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United Methodist News Service
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