logging

Prowling Europe’s last lowland old growth forest

While in Poland recently for work, I took a couple days out to see the old growth forest located on the country’s eastern border with Belarus. It’s an incredible place, thick with massive oaks and a myriad of other broadleaf deciduous trees, plus boars, bison, lynx, roe deer, martens, and three packs of wolves running […]

Deal to shrink roadless areas in Idaho approved by Bush admin

An Idaho-specific plan meant to replace President Clinton’s national roadless rule in the state was agreed to Friday by the Bush administration, timber interests, and a few environmental groups. If approved by the Secretary of Agriculture after a public-comment period, the revised rule would protect just 3.3 million acres of forestlands in the state, down […]

Feds axe acreage of spotted owl habitat

The amount of old-growth forest designated as critical habitat for the northern spotted owl was slashed 23 percent, or 1.6 million acres, by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service on Tuesday. One might think that means that spotted owls are doing well for themselves, but no: the spotted owl population is dropping by 4 percent […]

Peruvian Amazon under threat from oil exploration, illegal logging

There’s no better way to start off a Monday than with depressing news from the Peruvian Amazon, which is under threat from both fossil-fuel development and illegal logging. Despite protests from environmental and human rights groups, Peru’s government plans to auction off dozens of parcels of remote rainforest for oil and gas companies to explore. […]

Bush raises taxes on hikers and campers, mysteriously leaving logging companies alone

Bush won't slash subsidies for raise taxes on oil companies, but he's happy to raise taxes on hikers and campers. But I'm sure Grover Norquist will hold him accountable for this apostasy.

Reeling from the high cost of fighting wildfires, federal land agencies have been imposing new fees and increasing existing ones at recreation sites across the West in an effort to raise tens of millions of dollars.

Additionally, hundreds of marginally profitable campsites and other public facilities on federal lands have been closed, and thousands more like overlooks and picnic tables are being considered for removal.

"As fire costs increase, I've got less and less money for other programs," said Dave Bull, superintendent of the Bitterroot National Forest here in Hamilton. The charge for access to Lake Como, a popular boating destination in the national forest, will be increased this year, to $5 from $2.

Since they're explaining this as fire-related, I'm sure Bush will charge the logging companies responsible for the fires for the damage they're doing to our forests and grasslands.

Clinton lobbied for tire burning near Granite State

With the New Hampshire primaries approaching, I thought I'd share this article about how Hillary Clinton's political style has directly affected New Hampshire voters in a way that might shed light on the kind of president she would be. The article was co-written with Friends of the Earth Action president Brent Blackwelder.

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New Hampshire has for decades struggled to keep its air clean. But during 2005 and 2006, Hillary Clinton's ambitions collided with New Hampshire's air quality, putting thousands of Granite Staters, and particularly children, directly in the line of a deadly cloud of toxic pollution.

At the time, of course, Clinton was hotly engaged in a campaign to increase her margin of victory in her bid for reelection in her New York Senate race. Her triumph was never in question: she faced only token Republican opposition in a heavily Democratic state. But she was desperate to prove that she could win with a big margin in more conservative areas of upstate New York so she could prove to Democrats that she would be viable in similar conservative areas around the country during her presidential bid.

That understandable political aspiration came head to head with New Hampshire children's health in 2005, when the International Paper logging company unveiled a proposal to burn tires at its Ticonderoga paper mill in upstate New York on the border with Vermont. Burning tires to power its operations would save IP money on its electricity bills, but it came with a heavy price.

Which circle of hell for illegal logging?

Sickening. Kevin John Moran of Camano Island, Wash., was just convicted of illegally cutting down 27 old-growth cedars on public land. They were between 400 and 700 years old. And they were dry-side trees, even rarer than the Northwest's west-slope titans.

But here's the worst that can happen to him:

Theft of government property is a Class C felony, which means a maximum sentence of 10 years or less, and a fine not to exceed $250,000.

Some of these trees were mature giants long before Europeans ever encountered the Pacific Northwest. They were protected on public land. They were our natural heritage.

But destroying them? That's just "theft of government property."

Sentencing is in February.

Mexican police conduct anti-logging raid in butterfly habitat

Hundreds of Mexican police raided illegal sawmills near a monarch butterfly reserve yesterday in “the largest seizure of illegally logged wood in the country’s history,” according to the attorney general’s office. Millions of butterflies travel some 2,500 miles each winter to spend the cold season in the Mexican forest, where illegal logging is rampant. The […]

Mexico boosts funding for butterfly protection

Millions of butterflies clapped their tiny wings as Mexican President Felipe Calderon yesterday announced a plan to curb logging and protect habitat for migrating monarchs. Mexico has already boosted anti-logging efforts, resulting in a 48 percent drop in illegal tree-chopping in the last year. Calderon hopes the additional funding to be put toward the existing […]