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Churches challenge Gore to exert environmental leadership

March 9, 2000        News media contact: Joretta Purdue ·(202)
546-8722·Washington     10-21-71B{131}

WASHINGTON (UMNS) - Six bishops and five other religious leaders are asking
Vice President Al Gore to take a leadership role in saving the forests of
the South.

The group, concerned with the "sudden, unchecked growth of chip mills and
their impact on forest sustainability throughout the South," has written a
letter urging Gore to develop policies to preserve the forests for the sake
of the wildlife and the human communities that depend on them.

In their March 6 letter, the leaders remind Gore that as a U.S. senator in
1992, he had said, "In my view there is no justification for permitting even
one chip mill operation along the Tennessee River."

The Knoxville, Tenn.,-based Commission On Religion in Appalachia agrees with
that statement and calls for "a moratorium on all chip mill operations in
the South due to their impacts on God's creation." The commission comprises
18 denominations and state councils of churches in Georgia, Kentucky, North
Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, Virginia and West Virginia.

The letter is signed by the commission chairman, the Rev. Arleon Kelley, a
United Methodist; United Methodist Bishops Kenneth Carder of the Nashville
(Tenn.) Area, Ray W. Chamberlain Jr. of the Holston Area (around Knoxville),
S. Clifton Ives of the West Virginia Area and chair of the United Methodist
Appalachian Development Committee, Marshall L. Meadors Jr. of the
Mississippi Area and Neil L. Irons of the Harrisburg (Pa.) Area.

Others who signed the letter include Senior Bishop Nathaniel Linsey of the
Christian Methodist Episcopal Church, Ohio Area; the Rev. Thom White Wolf
Fassett, top staff executive of the United Methodist Board of Church and
Society; the Rev. Charles McCollough of the Office of Church in Society,
United Church of Christ; and the co-chairpersons of the Eco-Justice Working
Group of the National Council of Churches of Christ in the U.S.A, Father
Chris Bender and Tena Willemsma.

"We are called by God to serve as good stewards of creation," they say. "And
that means that our forests must be managed in a manner that can be
sustained from generation to generation.  

"We do not see evidence of such long-term planning at present."

Since God is the creator and owner of all, those who are temporarily
entrusted with the land and its bounty have an obligation to ensure that all
of God's children benefit from what is done on that land, the letter states.
"We need to ensure that forest policy protects the common good across our
region, and not merely the narrow interest of the few."

In the interests of justice, the writers urge Gore to join them in
considering who profits and who pays the price. They ask whether companies
are being allowed to exploit resources without regard for the quality of
life in the local communities.

The full text of the letter, with the signers' names, is available at
http://www.umc-gbcs.org/whatsnew.htm on the Board of Church and Society's
Web site. 

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United Methodist News Service
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