http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-bonnicksen21oct21,1,3921976.story?coll=la-headlines-california

LA TIMES

Logging
Proponent's Credentials Questioned

An emeritus
professor has been highly visible in the push to log on federal land. He has a
contract with a timber industry foundation.

By Bettina Boxall, Times Staff Writer

October 21, 2006

In the perennial battle over how the West's vast acreage of federal forests should be managed, science is a favorite weapon. And on the pro-logging side no academic has been as visible
as Thomas M. Bonnicksen, particularly in California.

The Texas A&M emeritus professor of forest science has testified before
Congress 13 times, written numerous op-ed pieces and been widely quoted in
Western newspapers, including the Los Angeles Times. Always he sounds the same
theme: Logging is the key to restoring public lands to their former
fire-resistant state.

In his writings, Bonnicksen has commonly disclosed
that he sits on the advisory board of the Auburn, Calif.-based Forest
Foundation.

What he hasn't divulged is how lucrative his
connection with the pro-logging timber industry-funded foundation has been.
According to public tax documents, Bonnicksen
collected $109,000 from the foundation in the last two years as an independent
contractor.

"He's always introduced as the leading expert on forest recovery, and he's
just not. There's nothing in his record other than just talking and
hand-waving," said UCLA ecology professor Philip Rundel,
one of several academics who issued an open letter to the media this week
questioning Bonnicksen's credentials.

"I don't care if people print his stuff or not. But he needs to be
identified for what he is “a lobbyist."

The letter, signed by two other UC faculty members and the founding dean of
Duke University's Nicholas School of the Environment and Earth Sciences,
accused Bonnicksen of having misrepresented
scientific facts, and advancing views that "fall far outside the
mainstream of scientific opinion."

The letter also disputed Bonnicksen's claim of an
affiliation with the University
of California. Although
he has identified himself repeatedly as a visiting professor at UC Davis,
officials there say that although Bonnicksen was once offered that title, he was never formally named a
visiting professor.

Bonnicksen, who lives in Florida
but frequently gives talks in California,
said the letter writers were acting unethically and trying to silence him.

"I am a full professor for life," he said. "I have academic
freedom. I may speak as I wish, and I've always tried to do that as honestly as
possible and using the science I know and have access to."

Cheryl Rubin, vice president of communications for the Forest Foundation and
its sister organization, the California Forest Products Commission, said Bonnicksen was paid "for the work he performed to
educate Californians and people nationally: interacting with journalists,
policymakers, students, professors. He gives speeches.

"We've always identified him with the Forest Foundation," she added.
"I don't believe it's a common practice to say paidŠ.
How would you expect it to be revealed in an op-ed?"

Rubin said the nonprofit foundation gets slightly less than half of its money
from the forest products commission, which is funded
entirely through timber assessments. The foundation website lists on its board
of directors executives of Sierra Pacific Industries and Sierra Forest
Products, both major buyers of federal timber.

Bonnicksen, who said his foundation contract pays him
$38,000 a year plus travel reimbursements, said the funding posed no conflict.

"It's not the source of the money that's important," he said.
"It's the integrity and scientific ability of the person. So I don't care where the money comes from because I am not
saying anything now that I haven't said for 35 years. It has not tainted
anything."

Bonnicksen said he believed he had been offered an
appointment as a visiting professor at Davis,
something UC officials don't dispute.

They say Bonnicksen was invited
in the spring of 2004 to accept a yearlong visiting professorship by UC Davis
professor Michael Barbour, who also serves on the Forest Foundation advisory
board.

But a university official said Barbour never followed
up with the formal procedure required to name a visiting professor, which
involves approval by the faculty, the dean and the chancellor.

"While Bonnicksen thought he had a title, he in
fact did not," said James MacDonald, executive associate dean for the College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences.

The administration sent Bonnicksen a letter Sept. 26
telling him to stop identifying himself as a visiting professor.

"It's taken off of everything," said Bonnicksen,
who lectured at Davis
only once. "I kept trying to get over there and it kept never fitting in
my schedule, not because I didn't want to. It was because I couldn't do
it."

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