Federal Judge Reinstates Rule Protecting Old-Growth Cedar, Spruce, Hemlock In Tongass N.F.

[hatrack]

SAN FRANCISCO — A federal district judge has reinstated a Clinton-era regulation that prevented logging on old stands of hemlock, cedar and spruce trees in large stretches of the Tongass National Forest in Alaska.

The judge, John W. Sedwick, ruled that a Bush administration decision to reverse course and allow tree-cutting was made for reasons that he called “implausible, contrary to the evidence in the record” and in conflict with judicial precedents.

The State of Alaska had intervened in support of the federal government, arguing that closing off areas open to logging would cost jobs. But in his ruling, handed down late Friday, Judge Sedwick said evidence presented in the case showed that logging in southeastern Alaska has been declining in any case. At 16.8 million acres, the Tongass is the largest component of the national forest system. It was the center of a battle in the 1990s between the timber industry and environmental groups and has a strong emotional pull for environmentalists as a remnant of the primeval immensity of the North American wilderness.

The initial Clinton-era rule, issued in 2001, prohibited logging roads in 9.5 million acres of the forest. The Bush administration’s partial reversal potentially opened 2.3 million roadless acres to logging trucks. For the past seven years, administrative rulings by the federal Forest Service and by federal courts have veered in one direction and then another, on the status of the “roadless rule” and federal protections for old-growth timber. The current case was brought by a local village, Kake, which sought to preserve the acreage for recreational use.

EDIT

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/08/science/earth/08roadless.html?_r=1&partner=rss&emc=rss

[liberal N proud]

1. K&R

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Good news is rare enough to celibrate. :toast: