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The U.S. Forest Service admitted Wednesday to making a "serious'' mistake that allowed 17 acres to be logged inside a rare tree reserve as part of the salvage harvest of timber burned by the 2002 Biscuit fire. The logging inside the 350-acre Babyfoot Lake Botanical Area, created in 1966 to protect Brewer spruce and other rare plant species on the Rogue River-Siskiyou National Forest, was discovered last week by environmentalists after the Fiddler timber sale was harvested and a forest closure intended to bar protesters was lifted. Forest Service personnel mismarked the border of part of the Fiddler timber sale...

In Effect Until Oct. 31 GRANTS PASS, Ore. -- People traveling in Southern Oregon should know about a series of immediate and temporary public closures of roads and trails. The U.S. Forest Service and Bureau of Land Management cite safety reasons for the recent closures in the Siskiyou National Forest. They will be in effect until Oct. 31 unless rescinded sooner by the forest service and BLM. The agencies are taking action after repeated road blocks in the area of the Hobson timber sale. On Monday, a protester blocked a road leading into the logging site. A makeshift platform was...

SACRAMENTO (AP) - An environmental group is suing California wildlife regulators, alleging officials broke the law by giving a North Coast timber company the right to damage the habitats of two endangered species. Pacific Lumber Co. gained permission under the 1999 Headwaters deal for certain logging activities that environmentalists said would harm populations of coho salmon and marbled murrelets, a seabird that nests in old growth redwoods. A Humboldt County Superior Court judge revoked the permits in 2003, saying they violated the California Endangered Species Act. In February, the state Department of Fish and Game cleared the way for the...

VAIL, Colo. -- The mountain views along Red Stone Road suggest early autumn, with splashes of red, orange and rusty brown dotting the green hillsides above the homes and condominiums of this Colorado resort town. But this is summer and the colors represent dead pine needles on hundreds of pine trees that have been killed by beetles.The tree mortality rate around Vail is striking, but it's even worse in other parts of the West. According to U.S. Forest Service figures compiled for The Associated Press, the acres of forest killed by beetles in 12 Western states jumped from 1.4 million...

SEATTLE - A federal judge struck down a move by the Bush administration to ease logging restrictions in the Northwest, saying the government failed to consider the effect on rare plants and animals. U.S. District Judge Marsha Pechman said in her ruling Monday that under federal law, authorities had an obligation to show why the logging restrictions should be changed. The rule change, which took effect in the spring of 2004, said forest managers no longer had to look for rare species before logging. Instead, the U.S. Forest Service and the Bureau of Land Management were to use information provided...

When will timber companies, their allies in Congress and the U.S. Forest Service learn that logging America's last remaining ancient forests does not make good economic or environmental sense? ("Timber companies sue for reparations," July 3). Not only does the Forest Service sell our wild heritage at taxpayer expense, but the companies that buy the contracts are clearly aware that the vast majority of proposed public-land logging projects violate the law. The Forest Service has not provided a full public accounting of its timber sale program since 1998, when they revealed a loss of $100 million in tax money. Independent...

ARCATA, Calif. — Jason Wilson was just 21 when a Lakota elder gave him a spirit name. Wilson, she said, was destined to carry a heavy weight. He would need the medicine of the name she offered, she told him, "to carry that weight in a good way, a strong way and as far as it needs to be carried." Three years later, on a September day in 1998, the bearded redhead from Missouri lay in a fetal curl on the floor of a Humboldt County forest, rocking and sobbing in the duff. Next to him was 24-year-old David Nathan...

Finally, more than four years after its hideous birth, the Clinton "Roadless Rule" is dead. The Bush administration and the Forest Service just announced a final rule that effectively undoes Clinton's reckless decree. Dying with the "Roadless Rule" are the following: - threats of catastrophic wildfire - threats of forest infestation and disease - lack of public access to public lands - improper resource management - unhealthy forests - top-down federal overreach Recall that Bill Clinton, just eight days before he left office, in the dark of night, penned his infamous, unilateral, executive order that locked up over 58 million...

Arnold pledges to save trees Governor says California's roadless areas will be safe from Bush policy Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger vowed Thursday that the Bush administration's attempt to open a third of national forests to logging, mining and development will not diminish protections for California's remote forestlands. Announcing an agreement with the U.S. Forest Service to protect about 4.4 million California acres left vulnerable to construction under the new Bush administration rules, Schwarzenegger said those largely undeveloped areas will remain untouched. "I am committed to protecting the vibrant health and sustainable future of our forests," Schwarzenegger said in a statement. "Roadless...

SCOTIA, Calif. - Financially troubled Pacific Lumber Co. is the victim of its corporate owner's excesses, not increasing government restrictions on logging, according to a state water agency's controversial new study. The state Water Resources Control Board's 18-page report blames Texas-based Maxxam Inc. for shifting hundreds of millions of dollars in profits from Pacific Lumber in "subtle and complex ways," forcing the North Coast timber giant to cut trees "at rates that greatly exceed sustainable forest practices." The state report claims Maxxam has funneled nearly $725 million in Pacific Lumber earnings into its own Houston, Texas, coffers over the past...

The Bush administration, in one of its biggest environmental decisions, moved yesterday to open nearly one-third of all remote national forest lands to road building, logging and other commercial ventures. The 58.5 million acres involved, mainly in Alaska and in western states, had been put off limits to development by President Bill Clinton eight days before he left office in January 2001. In Virginia, 394,000 acres are affected in the Jefferson and George Washington national forests. Under existing local forest management plans, about 34.3 million acres of these pristine woodlands nationally could be opened to road construction. That would be...

WASHINGTON - Governors are being given 18 months to change the Bush administration's plan to open up to 58.5 million acres of remote national forestland to road building, timbering and other commercial activity. In one of its biggest environmental decisions, the administration will let governors petition for more or fewer restrictions against developing nearly a third of the 191 million acres of national forests, according to briefing documents obtained by The Associated Press. The U.S. Forest Service planned to announce the new "roadless" rule later Thursday. It replaces one that former President Clinton had put in place little more than...

Fortuna, Calif. -- The Pacific Lumber Co. announced Tuesday it would close its Fortuna sawmill, after what the company described as "one of the most difficult seven months in the company's history." Pacific Lumber President and CEO Robert Manne said the company had been unable to harvest at sustainable levels and to get harvest plans approved by all state agencies in a timely manner.

PORTLAND, Ore. -- A decade after the Clinton administration reduced logging in national forests in the Northwest, scientists have concluded the forests are growing, but the population of the threatened northern spotted owl has declined. Scientists reported Tuesday that the Northwest Forest Plan, adopted by the Clinton administration in 1994, resulted in an 80 percent reduction in logging on 24 million acres of land in western Washington, Oregon and Northern California. Since the plan was adopted, medium-aged to older forests have increased by 606,000 acres to 7.9 million acres, or to about 34 percent of all forest land in the...

PORTLAND, Ore. - A decade after the Clinton administration reduced logging in national forests in the Northwest, scientists have concluded the forests are growing, but the population of the threatened northern spotted owl has declined. Scientists reported Tuesday that the Northwest Forest Plan, adopted by the Clinton administration in 1994, resulted in an 80 percent reduction in logging on 24 million acres of land in western Washington, Oregon and Northern California. Since the plan was adopted, medium-aged to older forests have increased by 606,000 acres to 7.9 million acres, or to about 34 percent of all forest land in the...

SCOTIA, Calif. (AP) - State water officials ordered Pacific Lumber Co. to temporarily halt logging in Humboldt County on Wednesday after environmentalists filed a petition questioning the validity of the company's timber harvest plans. The State Water Resources Control Board issued the stay requested by the Humboldt Watershed Council and the Environmental Protection Information Center to suspend logging in parts of the Freshwater Creek and Elk River watersheds near Eureka on California's far northern coast. In February, the North Coast Regional Water Quality Control Board agreed to allow Pacific Lumber to cut up to 50 percent of the annual 1,100-acre...

American protectionism creates fitter Canadians “IT'S the biggest trade battle on the planet,” says Pierre Pettigrew, Canada's trade minister, with only mild exaggeration. In 2001, Canada exported softwood lumber and wood products to the United States worth C$10 billion ($6.5 billion). Unfairly so, thanks to subsidies, squealed the American lumber lobby. Last May, America imposed countervailing duties averaging 27% on Canadian imports. This was supposed to force Canada to negotiate. But now it is the Americans who are suing for peace. This week, at the invitation of the United States' Commerce Department, all parties in the dispute were to gather...

SACRAMENTO (AP) - The increasing cost of logging regulations may prompt more landowners to sell their timberland for development and other uses, particularly in areas where property values are rising, according to a new study. The California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo, study released Wednesday finds the average cost of meeting the regulations has increased 1,200 percent over the last 30 years, and now tops $30,000. But the study also is triggering criticism of the researchers for accepting partial funding from the timber industry. Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's administration, environmentalists and some state lawmakers have said the price of a...

GRANTS PASS, Ore. (AP) - Loggers went to work without interference Tuesday at the site of a 2002 forest fire, felling old-growth trees after the U.S. Forest Service closed off the area to keep out protesters. Citing safety concerns for loggers and protesters alike, officials in the Siskiyou National Forest on Monday closed the 700-acre area and roads leading to the timber sale. Protesters had impeded loggers going to work. Forest Service spokesman Tom Lavagnino said a crew of loggers had no trouble getting to work Tuesday, and rangers had not spotted a tree sitter who logging opponents said was...

WEAVERVILLE -- It took five years of debate, but residents in this tree-nestled town soon will have a forest of their own. Visions of a "community forest" are coming true thanks to a new ownership strategy that has piqued the interest of Bureau of Land Management officials as far away as the nation's capital. The BLM owns about 1,000 acres of evergreen hills and ridges just southwest of Weaverville. A few years ago, the agency planned to get rid of the land by selling or trading it to timber company Sierra Pacific Industries. But now the BLM is drafting a...