national forests
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The Roadless Rule Is Dead! Long Live the Roadless Rule!
Judge puts Clinton’s roadless policy back in action In a Three Stooges-esque poke to the eyes of the Bush administration (nyuk nyuk!), U.S. District Judge Elizabeth Laporte yesterday reinstated a Clinton-era ban on road construction, logging, mining, and other development in roadless national forest areas. In May 2005, the Bushies replaced Clinton’s “roadless rule” — […]
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Smokey Robbin’s On
Urban-style crime in national forests seems to be on the rise In some parts of the U.S., being a forest ranger isn’t the cushy job you might imagine. Far from keeping cartoon bears away from picnic baskets, rangers have been confronting a rising tide of urban-style crime: everything from domestic violence and drunken driving to […]
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Take a Road Off, Arnie
Schwarzenegger asks feds to protect roadless national forests in California California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger (R) today asked the feds to keep all 4.4 million roadless acres of national forest in his state off-limits to logging, road-building, and other development. President Bush in 2004 canceled President Clinton’s rule protecting roadless national-forest areas; now it’s up to […]
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Biscuits ‘n’ Crazy
Forest Service will auction off Oregon timber burned by Biscuit fire Enviros have lost a four-year legal battle to keep logging out of Oregon’s Rogue River-Siskiyou National Forest, burned four years ago by the massive Biscuit fire. A federal appeals court has cleared the U.S. Forest Service to auction off rights today to about 400 […]
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It’s time for conservationists to collaborate with an agency they’ve long demonized
In 1982, Earth First!er Dave Foreman used form letters to blitz the U.S. Forest Service with administrative appeals, blocking over 100 timber sales that threatened roadless areas in several Western states. There’s a new ray of hope among forest activists. Photo: iStockphoto. This act of paper monkeywrenching sums up the relationship conservationists had with the […]
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Could a Western wildfire be the country’s next Katrina?
At the end of summer in southern Oregon’s Cascade foothills, when trees and brush have turned tinder dry and thunderstorms regularly roll overhead, Millie Chatterton and her neighbors start thinking about the lightning strike that could touch off disaster. The Biscuit burns in 2002. Photo: USFWS. Chatterton can’t forget the afternoon in 1987 when she […]
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Can’t Hear the Forest for the ORVs
Forest Service unveils new off-road vehicle rules The U.S. Forest Service says its new off-road vehicle (ORV) policy, announced yesterday, will set limits on where the noisy, pollution-spewing machines can be used in national forests — but conservationists say that’s not good enough. The new rule sets no overarching standard for ORV use in the […]
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On the Roadless Again
State leaders sue feds to bring back “roadless rule” Top officials from three Western states are suing the Bush administration in hopes of bringing back a rule banning road building on 58.5 million acres of national forests. The attorneys general of California and New Mexico, along with Oregon Gov. Ted Kulongoski (D), filed suit this […]
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Smokey and Mirrors
Feds cut estimated economic worth of recreation in national forests During the Clinton administration, the U.S. Forest Service estimated that by the year 2000, recreation in national forests would contribute about $111 billion a year to the American economy. Now the Bush administration has slashed that estimate by a whopping $100 billion for 2002, down […]
