Logging on federal land in the Northwest has dropped to its lowest point since before World War II, the result of lawsuits, court orders, and agency delays. This year, forest managers in western Oregon, Washington, and Northern California will offer about 1 percent of the timber volume they sold in 1990, the last year of the region’s logging boom. The Northwest Forest Plan, brokered by the Clinton administration in 1994, calls for the U.S. Forest Service to offer 600 million board feet of timber a year; last year, though, it offered 62 million board feet, and so far this year, it has offered 22 million board feet. Enviros say the drop is the legacy of years of overcutting in the Northwest. The timber industry wants the Bush administration to open more areas to logging.
