Viewpoint: Yes, logging of recently fire-ravaged forests in the Bitterroot Mountains poses numerous threats to the recovery of this land, as well as to the animal and plant populations that reside there.

Viewpoint: No, plans by the United States Forest Service to allow logging of dense forests in the Bitterroot Mountains would not cause lasting damage to the soil and rob the forest of natural systems of recovery; on the contrary, such plans would reverse a century's worth of mismanagement that allowed the national forests to become so dense that raging fires were inevitable.

For almost six weeks during the summer of 2000, a confluence of intense wildfires devastated about 365,000 acres of forests in southwestern Montana. About 20% of the acreage affected was in...