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SACRAMENTO, Calif., Aug. 31, 2009 – The California National Guard is part of a 17-agency endeavor to protect the state’s forests from destructive marijuana growers. California National Guardsmen involved in Operation Save Our Sierra turned up more than 30 miles of illegally placed irrigation pipe, 17,000 pounds of garbage and 4,050 pounds of fertilizer, including some that are toxic and illegal in the United States, as well as drugs and weapons, Fresno County, Calif., July 2009. U.S. Air Force photo by Tech. Sgt. David J. Loeffler  (Click photo for screen-resolution image);high-resolution image available. “The environmental impacts of the [marijuana] gardens include...

When you are in Israel, it is very easy to see where Israeli run territory ends and territory run by the Palestinian Authority begins, just look for the end of the forest. Growing trees in Israel has been a priority since before the state of Israel was formed. It is a tradition that people living in the diaspora contribute to the JNF to plant trees in Israel, and when Jews visit Israel, they plant trees, as my family did on our visit three years ago. During our next trip we will go and visit our trees. It is precisely that...

Globally, tropical trees in undisturbed forest are absorbing nearly a fifth of the CO2 released by burning fossil fuels. The researchers show that remaining tropical forests remove a massive 4.8 billion tonnes of CO2 emissions from the atmosphere each year. This includes a previously unknown carbon sink in Africa, mopping up 1.2 billion tonnes of CO2 each year. "We are receiving a free subsidy from nature," says Dr Simon Lewis, a Royal Society research fellow at the University of Leeds, and the lead author of the paper. "Tropical forest trees are absorbing about 18% of the CO2 added to the...

Persistent changes in tree mortality rates can alter forest structure, composition, and ecosystem services such as carbon sequestration. Our analyses of longitudinal data from unmanaged old forests in the western United States showed that background (noncatastrophic) mortality rates have increased rapidly in recent decades, with doubling periods ranging from 17 to 29 years among regions. Increases were also pervasive across elevations, tree sizes, dominant genera, and past fire histories. Forest density and basal area declined slightly, which suggests that increasing mortality was not caused by endogenous increases in competition. Because mortality increased in small trees, the overall increase in mortality...

With two-thirds of Oregon county governments, including Lane County, facing financial crises, Oregon Gov. Ted Kulongoski on Monday urged residents to accept modest local property tax increases and more logging on federal forests to help stave off deep cuts in county law enforcement and other critical services. Those steps are just two of 54 recommendations in a task force report delivered to the governor on Monday. Kulongoski commissioned the report last year to address the imminent loss of about $238 million in annual federal timber payments, including $47 million a year to Lane County. The top recommendation was for Oregon...

California and other states that want to ban road-building in large swaths of national forests should have to pay for the resulting increased costs of fighting wildfires on those federal lands, U.S. Agriculture Undersecretary Mark Rey said Thursday. Rey, the undersecretary for natural resources and the environment in charge of the U.S. Forest Service, said the Bush administration has encouraged states and local governments to offer input in the management of federal lands. But he told a Wildland Urban Interface conference that one of the unintended consequences is that state-imposed moratoriums on development in roadless areas boost the cost of...

A proposal facing action by the U.S. Senate would force National Park and National Wildlife Refuge managers to allow more loaded, hidden handguns in national parks and wildlife refuges, endangering the public as well as wildlife. "This is more of the same from the gun pushers - any gun, anywhere, at any time," said Paul Helmke, President of the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence. "Why are we putting hikers, campers and families at risk by introducing loaded, hidden handguns into our national parks and refuges? This proposal is a bad idea that the Senate should reject." Senator Tom Coburn...

A federal grand jury has indicted an Incline Village woman for allegedly hiring a crew to cut down three large pine trees up to a century old on U.S. Forest Service land at Lake Tahoe.58-year-old Patricia Vincent was indicted by the grand jury in Reno last week on two charges, including theft of government property. If convicted, she faces up to 10 years in prison and a $250,000 fine for each count.The three ponderosa pine trees from 80 to 100 years old were growing on a national forest lot the Forest Service had designated as environmentally sensitive as part of...

The beetle infestation that is expected to kill all of Colorado's mature lodgepole forest within five years is moving into Wyoming and the Front Range. A pine beetle infestation is spreading from the mountains into southern Wyoming and the Front Range, and all of Colorado's mature lodgepole pine forests will be killed within three to five years, state and federal officials said Monday. The bark beetle infestation ravaged 500,000 new acres of forests in Colorado in 2007, bringing the total infestation to 1.5 million acres — almost all of state's lodgepole forests — according to the latest aerial survey. The...

When Hurricane Katrina slammed into the Gulf Coast two years ago, the storm devastated 320 million trees. Now the United States is suffering the worst forest catastrophe in its history, according to a new analysis by the journal Science. < snip > Deforestation already accounts for nearly one in every five tons of carbon dioxide that humanity worldwide puts into the atmosphere. And Katrina's wake has now added to this deforestation. Such hurricanes become more likely, say many scientists, as global warming accelerates due to greenhouse gas emissions. Scientists call this phenomenon a feedback loop; the warmer it gets, the...

Forget biofuels - burn oil and plant forests instead 19:10 16 August 2007 NewScientist.com news service Catherine Brahic It sounds counterintuitive, but burning oil and planting forests to compensate is more environmentally friendly than burning biofuel. So say scientists who have calculated the difference in net emissions between using land to produce biofuel and the alternative: fuelling cars with gasoline and replanting forests on the land instead. They recommend governments steer away from biofuel and focus on reforestation and maximising the efficiency of fossil fuels instead. The reason is that producing biofuel is not a "green process". It requires tractors...

Gov. Schwarzenegger recently escalated a battle of words with federal officials over how to manage the remaining wilderness areas in Southern California's national forests. In an August letter to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, Schwarzenegger accused the federal government of not doing enough to make sure wilderness in the San Bernardino, Cleveland, Angeles and Los Padres national forests is protected from road construction. The state and environmental groups want more restrictions on forest roads than are outlined in new forest management plans, 10- to 15-year master plans for land use in the forests. Schwarzenegger charged the federal government with not...

YELLOWSTONE NATIONAL PARK -- A history of fire suppression, an invasive fungal plague, and rampant insect infestation fueled by global warming add up to likely extinction for the whitebark pine and serious trouble for the grizzly bear and other species that depend on it, some scientists say. That sets the stage for problem No. 2: white pine blister rust, an exotic species native to Eurasia and inadvertently introduced to western North America in 1910 near Vancouver, British Columbia... As the fungal disease spreads south and east, it leaves behind “ghost” forests, Tomback said -- stands of dead whitebark pine and...

A wildfire burned into a wilderness area of Los Padres National Forest on Saturday, threatening some campgrounds and showing no sign of slowing down as it moved through tinder-dry chaparral in Santa Barbara County. The fire was heading east and threatened some campgrounds and the historic Manzana schoolhouse, a century-old wooden building, fire spokesman Andy Yamamoto said. The fire was burning in a steep, remote area in brush and oak woodlands that had not seen flames for some 40 years, Yamamoto said. More than 1,200 firefighters were on the line, battling flames by hand or with bulldozers and aided by...

Southern Appalachian Multiple Use Council P.O. Box 1377 Clyde, NC 28721 828-627-3333 NEWS RELEASE For immediate release June 25, 2007 Contact: Steve Henson, Executive Director Southern Appalachian Multiple-Use Council, 828-627-3333 Environmentalists Lose Court Battle to Stop Timber Harvesting in Eastern National Forests Clyde NC – In a summary judgment ruling last week Federal Chief Judge Sandra Beckwith (Southern District Ohio) found that the US Fish & Wildlife Service (USF&WS) and the US Forest Service (USFS) had properly followed federal law and biological assessments in planning and implementing forest management practices on several eastern national forests including the Pisgah National Forest...

Scientists Close In On Missing Carbon Sink Science Daily — Forests in the United States and other northern mid- and upper-latitude regions are playing a smaller role in offsetting global warming than previously thought, according to a study appearing in Science this week. The study, which sheds light on the so-called missing carbon sink, concludes that intact tropical forests are removing an unexpectedly high proportion of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, partially offsetting carbon entering the air through industrial emissions and deforestation. To study the global carbon cycle, Stephens and his colleagues analyzed air samples that had been collected by...

U.S. Border Patrol agents seeking to secure the nation's border in some of the country's most pristine national forests are being targeted by illegal aliens, who are using intentionally set fires to burn agents out of observation posts and patrol routes. The wildfires also have resulted in the destruction of valuable natural and cultural resources in the National Forest System and pose an ongoing threat to visitors, residents and responding firefighters, according to federal law enforcement authorities and others. In the Coronado National Forest in Arizona, with 60 miles of land along the U.S.-Mexico border, U.S. Forest Service firefighters sent...

OTTAWA–Fearing the effects of forest fires and tree-destroying insect infestations, the federal government has decided against using Canada's forests in the calculations for totalling up the country's greenhouse-gas emissions. Instead of forests being used as a credit to offset other emissions, the government is now afraid that including forests in the formula could drive up Canada's climate-change burden. Government scientists made the call after learning of the damage that could come to forests from 2008 to 2012 and realizing the forests could become another source of emissions, pushing Canada even further from its Kyoto targets. In addition to destroying trees,...

The number of Colorado lodgepole pines killed by bark beetles jumped nearly fivefold in 2006 as the explosive, decadelong bug epidemic continues to gain steam. About 4.8 million lodgepoles were killed this year, up from roughly 1 million trees last year, according to Bob Cain, an entomologist with the U.S. Forest Service in Golden. The lodgepole acreage under attack by mountain pine beetles jumped about 50 percent this year to 644,840 acres, up from 430,526 acres last year. The new numbers, which are considered preliminary, come from aerial tree-damage surveys conducted this summer. "We had a significant increase in both...

World's Forests Rebounding, Study Suggests James Owen for National Geographic News November 13, 2006 Forests are branching out across the planet anew, raising hopes that an end to deforestation may be in sight, a new study claims. The study suggests that deforestation is not as drastic as it once was and that forests are recovering in many countries. The researchers say that over the past 15 years the amount of woodland has increased in 22 of the world's 50 most forested nations. China and the U.S. have achieved the greatest overall forest expansion, the team says, while tree cover has...

FEARS of a "skinhead" Earth devoid of any trees appear to be unfounded, according to new research which shows forests making a comeback in China and India.An international team of scientists, including Aberdeen University academic Professor Alexander Mather, found that 22 out of the world's 50 most forested countries were now increasing the amount of woodland and predicted that a "great restoration of the landscape" could begin by 2050. While global forests are still in decline, China, Vietnam and Spain have seen significant net increases from 1990 to 2005 and India's forests are now stable. Jesse Ausubel, director of the...

Environmentalists asked a federal judge Wednesday to overturn the Bush administration's rules for managing the country's 155 national forests, arguing that the regulations illegally weaken protections for wilderness and wildlife. Issued in December 2004, the rules represented a major shift in how the government balanced conservation and commercial interests in its 192 million acres of forest land. The management plan gave regional forest managers more discretion to approve logging, drilling and other projects without lengthy environmental studies. Wednesday's hearing in federal court in San Francisco was the first since a coalition of environmental groups sued the Bush administration over the...

The U.S. Forest Service has not developed national guidelines to assess the risks communities face from wildfires and is unable to ensure that the most important fire prevention projects are funded first, an independent government audit has found. And while the majority of catastrophic wildfires occur in the West, nearly 58 percent of the total acres treated in fiscal year 2004 were in the southeastern states, the report said. "The Forest Service cannot clearly identify the level of risk to communities from wildfire," it said. "It cannot demonstrate to stakeholders its accomplishments in reducing those risks with the funds provided."...

MARTINSVILLE, Ind. - In a town that is one of the key battlegrounds in the Interstate 69 fight, environmental groups Monday announced a federal lawsuit to block design and planning of the Evansville-to-Indianapolis leg of the highway. The plaintiffs, including the Hoosier Environmental Council and several business owners, allege that the Indiana Department of Transportation ignored harmful environmental impacts of building a direct route between Evansville and Indianapolis. It also claims INDOT was biased against a route that would have upgraded the existing U.S. 41-Interstate 70 corridor into a new highway. It accuses 11 defendants - state and federal agencies...

Logging trucks are again rumbling through town after a nearly 15-year hiatus. The Forest Service has reopened - or has plans to reopen - numerous drainages south of Eagle Ranch to logging... There are currently two active sales south of Eagle, with another in the works, said Cary Green, the White River National Forest's timber management assistant for the Eagle area. The 60-acre Beecher Gulch salvage timber sale, on Hardscrabble Mountain, sold in 2005, and about 500,000 board feet of timber is currently being harvested... A typical 2,000-square foot, single-family home requires about 27,000 board feet of framing lumber, paneling...

SAN FRANCISCO A federal judge on Wednesday overturned the Bush administration's rules on road construction in untouched areas of national forests and reinstated a Clinton-era ban on new roads in nearly a third of federal forests. U.S. District Judge Elizabeth Laporte sided with states and environmentalists who sued the U.S. Forest Service after it reversed Clinton's "Roadless Rule" that prohibited logging, mining and other development on 58.5 million acres of forest land in 38 states and Puerto Rico. In May 2005, the Bush administration replaced the Clinton rule with a voluntary state-by-state petition process that the plaintiffs claimed violated federal...

Millions of mountain pine beetles are swarming the Rocky Mountains...looking for new trees to destroy. The Colorado State Forest Service wants residents to help stop the spread of the devastating pest before the Pike and San Isabel national forests take on a brown cast like those in Summit and Grand counties. "It's currently at an epidemic level," ... Dead trees are a sign the forest is unhealthy; they also pose a fire risk. The U.S. Forest Service... Trees are succumbing by the millions. "If the beetle is successful in getting underneath the bark of the tree, mama mates and burrows...

A mountain pine beetle infestation that has already killed off billions of trees in British Columbia is threatening to take over Alberta's jack pine, marking the start of a deadly cross-country trek. Each mountain pine beetle is the size of a grain of rice, but the voracious insects have already devoured an area of B.C.'s forest the size of Iceland. Another two million hectares in Alberta are now at risk, and the infestation could spread to Canada's boreal forest. "It likes all pine species and we've recently discovered this includes jack pine, which is a component of the boreal forest,"...

Some 750,000 trees have burned due to fires ignited by rockets landing in open areas. JNF estimates damages stand at NIS 36 million Ynet reporters Rocket damages beyond casualties and property: The fires sparked when rockets hit open areas in the north have scorched large forested areas, and according to the Jewish National Fund, it will take 60 years for the forests to regenerate. Altogether, in the 29 days of fighting, some 750,000 trees have burned, including oak, pine, pistachio and others. Direct damage stood at no less than NIS 36 million. On Wednesday a number rockets landed in open...

KERBY — A 40-foot log used by protesters to block access to the Mike's Gulch timber salvage sale in a roadless area of the Rogue River-Siskiyou National Forest Tuesday morning was cut from a nearby botanical area, according to forest officials. One irate activist called it a "petty" point, and said the U.S. Forest Service and John West, president of the firm that purchased the roadless sale, had cut countless trees illegally [snip] Illinois Valley resident Annette Rasch, a longtime environmental activist who was at the protest, discounted the issue. She said she did not know where the log came...

SACRAMENTO Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger on Wednesday plans to ask the federal government to prohibit roads on 4.4 million acres of national forest land in California, with limited exceptions for thinning trees to reduce fire danger. The goal is to protect areas of the forests that currently are not accessible by roads, Resources Secretary Mike Chrisman said Tuesday. Schwarzenegger is acting under a regulation adopted last year by the Bush administration. That regulation replaced a Clinton-era rule prohibiting road-building on nearly a third of national forest land. Clinton passed the road-building ban eight days before he left office in January 2001....

A group of environmentalists and residents who live near the Santa Fe National Forest have won an appeal that will delay plans to thin more than 1,800 acres near the Santa Fe Watershed. Project planners with the forest's Española Ranger District did not adequately collaborate with landowners, community groups and other stakeholders, according to U.S. Forest Service officials who reviewed the appeal. "Local collaboration may have resolved some of the public concerns, issues, and alternatives to the project that surfaced during the public involvement process," Santa Fe National Forest supervisor Gilbert Zepeda wrote in his May 25 decision. The Forest...

Open Letter from Congressman Scott McInnis (R-CO) to Senator John Kerry Regarding His Flip-Flop on the Healthy Forest Initiative(title edited for length) Senator Kerry-During your recent campaign stops throughout the west, you have waffled in your position on the President's Healthy Forests Initiative.  At the time of passage in 2003, you made unfounded claims concerning the Administration's forest health policies.  As you said, "Bush signed the so-called 'Healthy Forests' initiative that takes a chainsaw to public forests in the name of protecting them."  Now it appears you've changed your position, emphasizing your support for many of the forest management reforms President...

A Washington watchdog group has called on Congress and the IRS to investigate Rep. Richard Pombo, R-Tracy, for a laundry list of what it calls the lawmaker's ethics violations.Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington -- CREW -- on Thursday released a 13-count ethics complaint and a letter it sent to the Internal Revenue Service.Pombo called the charges a politically-motivated assault timed to appear just weeks before the June 6 primary election, where he has two opponents."I have never engaged in any illegal or unethical conduct whatsoever in my nearly 14-year career in the House, nor has any evidence been...

While North American newsprint usage was down again in March, output declined even more sharply, giving at least a temporary impression that producers are gaining in their efforts to keep the market tight. By Debra Garcia ETNA, Maine (May 01, 2006) -- While North American newsprint usage was down again in March, output declined even more sharply, giving at least a temporary impression that producers are gaining in their efforts to keep the market tight. According to statistics released today by the Pulp and Paper Products Council (PPPC), North American newsprint production was down year-over-year in March by 9.1%, while...

MISSOULA, Mont. — First came the knapweed. Then came the gall fly. And now the mice population is exploding — the mice that carry hantavirus. In a classic case of unintended ecological consequences, an attempt to control an unwanted plant has exacerbated a human health problem. Spotted knapweed, a European plant, is a tough, spindly scourge that has spread across hills and mountainsides across the West. In Montana alone, one of the worst-hit states, it covers more than four million acres. In the 1970's, biologists imported a native enemy of knapweed, the gall fly. The insect lays eggs inside the...

"GMUG" stands for the Grand Mesa, Uncompahgre and Gunnison National Forests. Combined, they encompass some 2.9 million acres of National Forest lands in Central and Western Colorado. These three forests are home to some of the most outstanding recreational opportunity in the West. Right now, the forest's are revising their Forest Plans. These management plans provide broad guidance on what activities may or may not occur on these lands. The BlueRibbon Coalition (BRC), a national recreation advocacy group that champions recreational access and responsible use of public and private lands, is growing increasingly concerned about the influence several anti-access groups...

Mystery mammal discovered in Borneo’s forests 00:01 06 December 2005 NewScientist.com news service Shaoni Bhattacharya The new beast, with its dark red fur and long tail, could be a new species of marten or civet, or belong to a new group entirely (Image: Stephan Wulffraat, WWF) Experts are mystified by the new creature, with some saying it looks like a civet, and others say that it resembles a lemur (Image: Wahyu Gumelar/Stephan Wulffraat, WWF)The mammal, which is slightly larger than a domestic cat, has dark red fur and a long, bushy tail. It was snapped twice at night by a...

Though there's geology involved, today we will just take a look at the colors of autumn from the air. Using Bertrand's Web site, I guessed and got lucky with an identification of the first one. I have no idea where the second one is from, so if someone has the time and enterprising spirit, have fun figuring out the location. The caption for the first is below the picture. AUTUMN FOREST IN THE REGION OF CHARLEVOIX, QUEBEC, CANADA (47°40' N, 71°02' W) The hills of the Charlevoix region along the Saint Lawrence River in Quebec province are dominated by a...

Experiments with intensive fertilization show that a spruce forest in Västerbotten, northern Sweden, can more than triple its growth if the trees have access to all plant nutrients. This favorably affects the function of the forest as a carbon sink. In other words, fertilizing forests can help slow down global warming. This has been shown by the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences (SLU) at Umeå and Alnarp. The research findings were recently published in the journal Global Change Biology. The authors are Per Olsson, Sune Linder, Reiner Giesler, and Peter Högberg. In terms of both the climate and energy policy...

A federal court ruling in favor of environmentalists is forcing the Forest Service to suspend more than 1,500 permits for activities ranging from fire prevention to Boy Scout meetings and also is threatening to delay cutting of the Capitol's Christmas tree until after the new year. A Forest Service regulation that allowed projects determined as having minimal environmental impact to be exempt from environmental studies and reviews was challenged by the Earth Island Institute. Judge James K. Singleton of the Eastern District Court of California ruled in July against a project to remove charred and damaged trees, which could kindle...

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) - Twenty environmental groups sued the Bush administration over a decision to repeal Clinton-era regulations that blocked road construction, logging and industrial development on more than 90,000 square miles of the nation's last untouched forests. In the lawsuit filed Thursday, the Sierra Club, National Audubon Society, Greenpeace and other groups challenged the U.S. Forest Service decision earlier this year to reverse the 2001 "roadless rule" that protected 58.5 million acres of undeveloped national forest. "These are the last wild areas of North America, and there is overwhelming public support for their protection from development," said Kristen Boyles,...

SAN FRANCISCO - California, New Mexico and Oregon sued the Bush administration over the government's decision to allow road building, logging and other commercial ventures on more than 90,000 square miles of the nation's remaining pristine forests. In the lawsuit filed Tuesday, attorneys general for the three states challenged the U.S. Forest Service's repeal of the Clinton administration's "roadless rule" that banned development on 58.5 million acres of national forest land, mostly in western states. "The Bush administration is putting at risk some of the last, most pristine portions of America's national forests," California Attorney General Bill Lockyer said. "Road...

UNITED NATIONS - The U.N. environment chief has a message for leaders of the world's major industrialized nations: scientists have shown that it pays to preserve forests, coastal waters and marshes. Klaus Toepfer made the case that investing in the environment will go a long way toward meeting U.N. goals to reduce poverty, supply clean drinking water and fight the spread of infectious diseases. "Our motto is environment for development," he said in an interview last week. The Group of Eight meets in Scotland on Wednesday and will address global warming and climate change — and Toepfer expressed hope that...

Nairobi - Kenya is evicting thousands of families who illegally occupy a vast swathe of forest in the country's Rift Valley region, the government spokesperson said on Friday. Alfred Mutua said the government would not backtrack on its decision to forcibly evict thousands of families from the Mau Forest, a vast swathe of indigenous woodland in the Central Rift Valley region, west of the capital Nairobi. "We are not going to allow people to live in forests," Mutua said, adding that: "These forest areas are water catchment areas and the waters from these areas not only feed our country but...

Changing planet revealed in atlasAn atlas of environmental change compiled by the United Nations reveals some of the dramatic transformations that are occurring to our planet. It compares and contrasts satellite images taken over the past few decades with contemporary ones. These highlight in vivid detail the striking make-over wrought in some corners of the Earth by deforestation, urbanisation and climate change. The atlas has been released to mark World Environment Day. The United Nations Environment Programme (Unep) produced One Planet Many People: Atlas of Our Changing Environment in collaboration with other agencies such as the US Geological Survey and...

New Monkey Species With Goose-Like Call Discovered Two Separate Teams of Scientists Stumble Across the Strange New Animal in Tanzania By AMANDA ONION - When a team of scientists first heard hunters from Tanzania's Wanyakyusa tribe talk about a quiet, black-faced monkey that hung out in high elevations, they weren't sure if it was real or a "spirit" animal from the tribe's oral tradition. "Sometimes the difference between real and spiritual animals is not clear-cut when you speak with the Wanyakyusa. So we went into the forest with one of the hunters," said Tim Davenport, director of Wildlife Conservation...

ITHACA, N.Y. -- Despite dozens of interceptions at U.S. ports, a public enemy has infiltrated the nation's borders. Taken captive in Fulton County, N.Y., and identified by a Cornell University expert, the adult female alien is the only one of its kind ever discovered in the eastern United States. The discovery of a single specimen of Sirex noctilio Fabricius, an Old World woodwasp, raises red flags across the nation because the invasive insect species has devastated up to 80 percent of pine trees in areas of New Zealand, Australia, South America and South Africa. If established in the United States,...

WASHINGTON - The Bush administration ended a four-year-old ban on development in roadless areas of national forests Thursday. The move could pave the way for oil and gas drilling, logging, mining and road building in 34.3 million acres of untouched woods. The new rule gives governors of pro-development Western states greater say over forest management in their states, which environmental groups fear will lead to development that threatens fish and wildlife in pristine areas. The first intrusions into the forests will probably be by natural gas-drilling rigs rather than chainsaws and timber mills because of market forces, according to economists,...

WASHINGTON - The Bush administration ended a 4-year-old ban on development in roadless areas of national forests Thursday. The move could pave the way for oil and gas drilling, logging, mining and road building in 34.3 million acres of untouched woods. The new rule gives governors of pro-development Western states greater say over forest management in their states, which environmental groups fear will lead to development that threatens fish and wildlife in pristine areas. The first intrusions into the forests will probably be by natural gas drilling rigs rather than chainsaws and timber mills because of market forces, according to...