Forests

"A federal judge has thrown out an industry lawsuit that could have led to more logging and road building in Alaska's Tongass National Forest, the nation's largest federal forest."

"Researchers at Northern Arizona University think they may have found an environmentally safe and readily available weapon against the tree-eating armies of bark beetles. It is, with apologies to the boys from Liverpool, the music of the beetles."

"Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) today unveiled legislation to revamp management of 8.3 million acres in six national forests in eastern Oregon with the backing of both timber and conservation groups that have long battled over the land."

"After striking out the last three times, the U.S. Forest Service is embarking on another rewrite of the basic planning rule that balances logging against fish and wildlife and clean water in national forests."

"Negotiators have all but completed a sweeping deal that would compensate countries for preserving forests, and in some cases, other natural landscapes like peat soils, swamps and fields that play a crucial role in curbing climate change."

"The U.S. Forest Service will receive $40 million more to address public safety concerns and forest health needs arising from the millions of acres of dead and dying trees killed by bark beetles in the West, Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack and Colorado Governor Bill Ritter announced Tuesday."

"A federal program that began as a safety net for Pacific Northwest logging communities hard-hit by battles over the spotted owl in the 1990s has morphed into a sprawling entitlement - one that ships vast amounts of money to states with little or no historic connection to timber, an analysis by The Associated Press shows."

"Poland's Bialowieza National Park is home to some of the most impressive trees in Europe. Old growth oak, ash, spruce, hornbeam, linden, lime, and pine tower out of sight, their trunks dripping with luscious moss. For millennia these trees (some of which are more than 600 years old) have harbored legions of top carnivores, rare bugs, birds, and plants. Three packs of wolves range the park's wilderness, along with bison, lynx, wild boar, roe and red deer, otter, cranes, storks, three kinds of eagle, and four owl species." The park faces a number of threats, especially logging."

"Forest Service Chief Tom Tidwell has directed the agency's regions and research stations to jointly produce draft "landscape conservation action plans" by March 1 to guide its day-to-day response to climate change."

The giant evergreen forests of the American West could play a signficant carbon-storage role as the nation "bridges" to sustainable energy.