US Forest Service
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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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Umbra on fire-fighting chemicals
Dear Umbra, Nearly every day, I can hear slurry bombers (planes that dump bright pink goo at the edges of fires) zooming overhead. I think the bright pink goo is a flame retardant, which seems to recently have gotten a bad reputation as a carcinogen. Not only that, but folks who have dogs here claim […]
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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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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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Just Looking
Forest Service considers sustainability certification In an attempt to stem criticism of its logging and forest-management practices from both timber companies and conservationists, the U.S. Forest Service is assessing a handful of forests to determine if they meet management requirements outlined by two very different sustainable forestry organizations, with an eye toward possible certification of […]
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USDA’s Mark Rey drags feet on releasing info about forest policymaking
Mark Rey. Photo: USFS. According to lawyers from Defenders of Wildlife, Agriculture Undersecretary Mark Rey, who oversees the U.S. Forest Service, seems to be pulling some moves out of the Dick Cheney playbook — the very same tricks of evasion and secrecy that have jeopardized the vice president’s reputation in the fiasco surrounding his energy […]