US agrees to chop back huge Montana logging plan
Date: 11-Feb-02
Country: USA
The Sierra Club, which had led the challenge to the U.S. Forest Service, said the two sides had reached a court-mediated deal that will both allow logging while protecting some 15,000 acres (6,075 ha) of wildlands.
"This is a great improvement for our wild forests, wildlife habitat, native fish, and, perhaps most importantly, public participation," Sierra Club President Jennifer Ferenstein said in a statement.
Rodd Richardson, the Forest Service supervisor for the 1.6 million acres (648,000 ha) Bitterroot National Forest on the Idaho-Montana border, said the deal would break the deadlock over how to deal with timber harvesting.
"It's signed and sealed," he told Reuters. "In a mediation nobody gets everything they want, but everybody gets something. And I think that's what occurred here. I'm just happy that we're able to move forward."
Environmental groups sued the Forest Service last year after the agency outlined a "Burned Area Recovery Plan" which would have permitted it to harvest some 44,000 acres (18,000 ha) of trees scorched by wildfires two years ago in what would have been one of the largest timber sales in U.S. history.
The Forest Service also declined to permit the standard period of public comment on the plan - earning it a rebuke from U.S. District Judge Donald Molloy, who called the agency's plan to push ahead over local opposition "presumptuous."
Groups opposed to the logging plan were given a preliminary injunction blocking the sale in January, and the two sides have since been involved in mediation.
Under the deal agreed Thursday, the Forest Service will harvest about 55 million board feet (18.3 million metres) of timber, two-thirds of the amount envisioned in its original plan.
It will also agree to protect a total of 15,000 (6,075 ha) acres of pristine, roadless wilderness that environmentalists say are crucial habitats for endangered trout species.
While calling the original Forest Service plan "a transparent attempt by the Bush administration to increase commercial logging on our National Forests," the Sierra Club's Ferenstein said the preservation of the public's right to comment on Forest Service plans marked the real victory of Thursday's agreement.
"We have preserved the right of the public to appeal Forest Service decisions that would harm the National Forests they enjoy and want to protect," she said.
