Free Republic

Europe’s last primeval forest is facing what campaigners call its last stand as loggers prepare to start clear-cutting trees, following the dismissal of dozens of scientists and conservation experts opposed to the plan. Poland’s new far right government says logging is needed because more than 10% of spruce trees in the Unesco world heritage site of Białowieża are suffering from a bark beetle outbreak. But nearly half the logging will be of other species, according to its only published inventory. Oak trees as high as 150 feet that have grown for 450 years could be reduced to stumps under the...

A U.S. judge on Friday approved a deal between conservationists and Montana officials to restrict road-building and logging in roughly 22,000 acres of state forest lands that make up core habitat for federally protected grizzlies. The agreement resolves a lawsuit brought by conservationists after the state had sought to open 37,000 acres , mostly in the Stillwater State Forest, to timber harvesting despite what environmentalists said would be the destruction of prime grizzly bear territory. ... U.S. District Judge Donald W. Molloy in a decision last year found the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service violated the Endangered Species Act by...

The Interior Department said Tuesday that the greater sage grouse, a ground-dwelling bird whose vast range spans 11 Western states, does not need federal protections ... The fight over whether to list the bird as endangered or threatened recalled the battle over the spotted owl 25 years ago, where federal protection greatly impeded the logging economy. ... could help defuse a potential political liability for Democrats heading into the 2016 election; ... House Natural Resources Committee Chairman Rob Bishop said Tuesday's announcement was a "cynical ploy" intended to mask the fact that the Obama administration has imposed limits on development...

Oregon is in the midst of its third consecutive summer of severe forest fires, and industry professionals say logging limits on federal land are largely to blame. The fires have already made their costs felt, as the Oregon Department of Forestry has already spent an estimated $25 million to date on this year’s blazes. This comes on the heels of two consecutive severe seasons in 2013 and 2014, the former of which was the most destructive wildfire season in the state’s history.

Expert says western yellow-billed cuckoo may be more prevalent than first thought. Paonia ornithologist Jason Beason likes to say that there are a lot of cuckoos out there. The line is good for laughs at presentations like the talks he gave in the Roaring Fork Valley last week, and it accurately reflects the fact that dozens of species of cuckoos populate the Earth in both the Old and New Worlds. These include birds people might not immediately think of as being cuckoos, such as the greater roadrunner in the southwestern United States. But in the case of the cuckoo of...

Sales of leases on 8.1 million acres of federal oil and gas parcels — an area larger than Massachusetts and Rhode Island combined — are on hold because of worries that drilling could harm greater sage grouse... the U.S. Bureau of Land Management’s delay on the parcels underscores just how much is at stake for an industry that finds its future inextricably intertwined with a bird once known primarily for its elaborate mating display. The grouse’s huge range, covering portions of 11 states and an area more than four times as big as New England, includes vast oil, gas and...

The Center for Biological Diversity, Greenpeace and the Boat Company sued the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service this year seeking a timely decision on their petition to list the Alexander Archipelago wolf under the Endangered Species Act. ... The petitioners want greater protection for wolves and their habitat on the Tongass National Forest. They argue that populations are declining and are vulnerable to hunting and trapping pressure along with loss of habitat from logging on the 17-million acre national forest. In particular, they cite past and future logging on Prince of Wales Island

How do you turn hundreds of thousands of acres of smallish trees into a profitable product? If you’re the Campbell Group, contractors for the Four Forests Restoration Initiative, you do it the old-fashioned way: Convert timber into lumber. Company officials say they will forgo more costly biofuel efforts for now as they prepare to thin 300,000 acres of northern Arizona forests. But the company faces a challenge even larger than the small trees. The logging industry has all but vanished from this region of the country. To thin that many acres, they’ll need drastically more loggers, trucks and mills. At...

Journalism, which was ranked as the worst job in America last year, inched up a notch to finish at number 199, just ahead of lumberjack on CareerCast’s latest list of the top 200 best and worst jobs in the U.S. for 2014. By “worst jobs,” they are referring to employment opportunities. This is a reversal of last year when lumberjack came in at 199, after finishing at number 200 in 2012. Neither job has a very bright future, with the Bureau of Labor Statistics estimating that logging positions will drop by 9% by 2022, and reporters by 13%. Logging has...

Candidates squaring off in the Republican primary, seeking to unseat Democrat Jeff Merkley in November, all support turning Oregon federal forests over to local ownership. Jo Rae Perkins, former Linn County GOP Chair, noted 53 percent of Oregon land is owned by the federal government. “This land should not be owned by the federal government. It needs to go back to the state and back into private ownership. Let the people take care of the land,” Perkins said. “We’ve got environmentalists who don’t even live in Oregon who want to bring a lawsuit against every timber sale there is. And...

Salvage logging on lands burned by last summer's Douglas Complex wildfire in southwestern Oregon is in full swing on privately owned forests, but not on public lands. ... On BLM lands, federal environmental laws require a lengthy planning process that includes the public. The Douglas Complex fires burned through 76 square miles on a patchwork of public and private lands.

SALT LAKE CITY — A coalition of conservation groups is hailing a federal judge's ruling Monday to strike down portions of the Richfield Bureau of Land Management plan they said gave deference to off-road vehicles at the expense of the environment. "This landmark decision is a resounding rejection of the BLM’s mismanagement of Utah’s stunning public lands,” said Stephen Bloch, legal director for the Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance. ... The Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance was among seven groups that filed a legal challenge to the Bush-era plans following their adoption in 2008, contending they imperiled pristine landscapes. The Richfield plan...

Tennessee’s second poorest county will suffer even more if the federal government buys 120,000 acres of land in that area, near Memphis, all for the stated purpose of wildlife preservation, said that county’s mayor. Lauderdale County Mayor Rod Schuh told Tennessee Watchdog Friday that his county, while poor, relies on farming and agriculture as the primary drivers of its economy. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife’s plan to expand the Lower Hatchie National Wildlife Refuge, assuming it buys out as many properties as it can, will rob the county of its most valuable commodity, Schuh said. Primarily, almost 60 percent of...

More than 200 biologists, ecologists and other scientists are urging Congress to defeat legislation they say would destroy critical wildlife habitat by setting aside U.S. environmental laws to speed logging of burned trees at Yosemite National Park and other national forests and wilderness areas across the West. The experts say two measures pushed by pro-logging interests ignore a growing scientific consensus that the burned landscape plays a critical role in forest regeneration and is home to many birds, bats and other species found nowhere else. …

Nineteen firefighters died fighting a forest fire in Arizona earlier this summer. Curiously, almost no one is talking about why it happened, only that it was a tragedy. Arizona Deputy State Forestry Director Jerry Payne has been the only one to speak out about the cause, and he backtracked immediately afterwards, apologizing for what he said. He claimed that the superintendent of the Granite Mountain Hotshots violated wildlife safety protocols while fighting the Yarnell Hill Fire on June 30th, 2013, 60 miles north of Phoenix. According to Payne, the superintendent’s violations allegedly included not knowing the location of the fire,...

U.S. Sen. Ron Wyden’s long-anticipated plan for the Oregon & California Railroad trust lands amounts to a bold call for — input. Anyone who thought that Wyden would propose something specific has to be disappointed. Nevertheless, people as prominent and impatient as Gov. John Kitzhaber dutifully issued stilted remarks thanking Wyden for his “leadership.” Tongues had to be firmly in cheek. No one dared point out that the chairman of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee had again failed to do anything to help the people who inhabit a large part of his state. Instead of legislation, Wyden offered...

WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court on Wednesday sided with timber interests in a dispute over the regulation of runoff from logging roads in western forests. In a 7-1 vote, the court reversed a federal appeals court ruling that held that muddy water running off roads used in industrial logging is the same as any other industrial pollution, requiring a Clean Water Act permit from the Environmental Protection Agency.

Legislation that would move the ownership and management of U.S. Forest Service and Bureau of Land Management lands in New Mexico to the state has been introduced at the Roundhouse. The Transfer of Public Lands Act is sponsored by Rep. Yvette Herrell, R-Alamogordo, and Sen. Richard C. Martinez, D-Espanola... Herrell said New Mexico has a rich history of farming, ranching, hunting, fishing and oil drilling. "In our past we have also had a thriving timber industry that is unfortunately near nonexistent ... ... A healthy timber industry, managed responsibly by New Mexicans, would not only help our economy by creating...

The Obama administration announced with little fanfare Thanksgiving eve plans to lock up nine million acres of land for the endangered Northern Spotted Owl. The plan would double the amount of public forest lands proposed by the Bush administration for the owl’s habitat in Oregon, Washington and Northern California, and is expected to severely limit commercial activities like logging. Rep. Doc Hastings (R-Wash.), chairman of the House Natural Resources Committee, said he is concerned the plan will cost taxpayers millions of dollars. “Expanding the Northern Spotted Owl’s critical habitat will further endanger the timber industry, the thousands of jobs that...

The U.S. Forest Service has re-examined the effects of a logging project on lynx habitat in an attempt to lift a judge's block of the Lolo National Forest project. U.S. District Judge Donald Molloy ruled in June that the Forest Service did not properly analyze the cumulative effects of the 2,038-acre Colt-Summit project on lynx habitat.