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  • Community-based forestry takes root in the U.S.

    Can a “forest economy” be good for the forest? A new movement known as community-based forestry says yes. Also referred to as community forestry, CBF is dramatically different from most forest management practiced in the U.S., and increasing numbers of environmentalists are championing the cause. Land of the trees, and home of the brave. Photo: […]

  • The Three Amigos

    Three Major Companies Join Fight to Protect Tongass Office supply giant Staples and building companies KB Home and Hayward Lumber have joined with environmentalists in opposing a Bush administration proposal that would allow roads and development in southeast Alaska’s pristine Tongass National Forest. The three companies, all big users of wood products, have been working […]

  • Raising the Zanzibar

    The island of Zanzibar, located just off the coast of Tanzania, is set to get its first national park. The island, which is independently governed, plans to convert the 12,355-acre Jozani Forest Reserve into a national park to promote better conservation, management, and natural-resource use, according to Mussa Ame Silima, Zanzibar’s minister of agriculture, natural […]

  • Pain in the Tongass

    Moderate Republicans, as well as Democrats and environmentalists, are up in arms over eleventh-hour language added by Sen. Ted Stevens (R-Alaska) to a huge $395 billion spending bill that would boost logging in Alaska’s Tongass National Forest. The provision would exempt nearly 2 million acres in the Tongass from a rule approved by former President […]

  • Order in the Court

    With a staunchly anti-environmental White House and a Republican-dominated Congress, environmentalists are turning to the third branch of government to fight their cause. Happily, the courts have presented a relatively safe haven for greens, upholding strict clean air standards the Bush administration sought to water down, blocking oil and gas exploration in the West, limiting […]

  • Texan’s Chainsaw Massacre

    Disregarding opposition in both houses of Congress, President Bush announced a plan yesterday to expedite the cutting of trees and brush in national forests by streamlining environmental reviews and judicial oversight. Bush says the plan will help reduce fire danger, but critics say last summer’s wildfires merely provided the pretext for permitting more logging on […]

  • Can’t See the Forest for the Stumps

    Here’s something you probably weren’t feeling very thankful for on Thursday: The Bush administration issued a proposal last week that would allow managers of the country’s 155 national forests to approve logging and other commercial activities without thoroughly assessing the potential environmental damage that could result. The proposal would radically alter Clinton-era rules that required […]

  • Ashes, Ashes, We All Fall Down

    The Bush administration and environmentalists are at loggerheads over what should happen to national forests burned in last summer’s wildfire season. The administration is pushing for aggressive logging of scorched forests, including older and larger trees; next month, it will propose new rules meant to reduce delays in timber sales due to environmental appeals. Enviros, […]

  • Ready, Willing, and Sable

    There’s sad news and a silver lining in the world of endangered species today. On the sad side, the first California condor chick brooded and hatched in the wild in nearly two decades was found dead of unknown causes last Friday in Los Padres National Forest. The death of the chick was a blow to […]