NATION The $1.6 billion National Fire Plan, approved by Congress last September, promised a cooperative, interagency approach to fire management (HCN, 9/25/00: Fires bring on a flood of federal funds). But the government’s in-house watchdog says that promise is far from fulfilled. In his testimony before a House subcommittee on July 31, General Accounting Office […]
Wildlife
Posted inAugust 27, 2001: Restoring the range of light
Fire managers play a subtle new game
SPRINGVILLE, Calif. – “I’ve been a pyromaniac ever since I lit my shirt on fire when I was five,” says Brent Skaggs. He’s not quite kidding. Thirty-four years later, Skaggs still plays with fire, but now he has two fire engines, 40 drip torches, a crew of 22 firefighters and he carries a million-dollar liability […]
Posted inAugust 27, 2001: Restoring the range of light
Sierra loggers get the ax
EL DORADO HILLS, Calif. – It is not yet 10 a.m. on a rainy spring morning, and a computer in the Wetsel-Oviatt sawmill already reads 797 trees turned into boards since dawn. Sawdust fills the air as workers wearing ear plugs roll white fir through an assembly line of blades. This mill in the hills […]
Posted inAugust 27, 2001: Restoring the range of light
‘The fire group is in a real building process’
Berni Bahro, 43, directed the fire analysis team for the Sierra Nevada Framework. He is a fire specialist in the Region 5 office of the Forest Service in Sacramento, Calif. “The information that we used to plan fuels management for the Framework was the best we’ve ever had. But at the site-specific level, there are […]
Posted inAugust 27, 2001: Restoring the range of light
Forest Plan has plenty of appeal(s)
VALLEJO, Calif. – If you didn’t know better, you’d think the Sierra Nevada Framework did something terrible to burglar-alarm companies. The staff at Giotto’s Alarm Tech in Tulare, Calif., accounts for 10 appeals – more than the Forest Service received from all the timber companies combined. “We’ve got a real activist office here,” says the […]
Posted inAugust 27, 2001: Restoring the range of light
Cows aren’t wanted here
Dick O’Sullivan stands in a lush meadow near Mount Lassen. What he sees is excellent habitat for an uncommon and drab little bird called the willow flycatcher. It’s also plush green forage for his cows. He thinks there’s room for both. The upper third of the meadow is Forest Service land. The lower third is […]
Posted inAugust 27, 2001: Restoring the range of light
Restoring the Range of Light
In California, the Forest Service sets fires, protects big trees and owls, and leaves loggers in the lurch
Posted inAugust 27, 2001: Restoring the range of light
A former oilman says no to drilling in the Arctic
I come from a long line of Texas earth-divers: prospectors, trappers and explorers who have spent their lives in the successful pursuit of oil and gas. I am proud of our part in supplying the world with energy – in feeding this country – and am proud of how today’s geologists have survived the volatility […]
Posted inAugust 27, 2001: Restoring the range of light
Drawing a line in the mud
Coloradans weed out tamarisk before it takes over
Posted inAugust 27, 2001: Restoring the range of light
Sierra Framework treads between protection, treatment
While everyone agrees that the Sierra Nevada’s vast forests and its creatures are in trouble, no one knows for sure how the U.S. Forest Service can restore the range to a condition that inspires rather than alarms – not even the authors of the agency’s 3,100-page Sierra Nevada Framework. The usual characters are present – […]
Posted inAugust 27, 2001: Restoring the range of light
The way it works
The final Sierra Nevada Framework is the guiding planning document for 11 million acres of national forest lands in California. It covers the Humboldt-Toiyabe, Modoc, Lassen, Plumas, Tahoe, Eldorado, Stanislaus, Sierra, Inyo and Sequoia national forests, and the Lake Tahoe Basin Management Unit. In a nutshell, the plan will: Reduce the total allowed timber harvest […]
Posted inAugust 27, 2001: Restoring the range of light
A plan for the Sierra: 20 years in the making
1981 The U.S. Forest Service starts to consider the impact of intensive logging on the California spotted owl. 1984 The agency recognizes the California spotted owl as a “sensitive” species, vulnerable to extinction. 1991 Sacramento Bee reporter Tom Knudson writes a series on the forest-health crisis in the Sierra Nevada. “The Sierra in Peril” wins […]
Posted inAugust 27, 2001: Restoring the range of light
Modern-day Muir copes with victory
Craig Thomas, 56, has been hanged in effigy, had his property vandalized and his life threatened. Yet he says he feels like the luckiest guy living in the Sierra Nevada: “I actually get paid to keep this mountain range intact,” he says. Thomas works for the Sierra Nevada Forest Protection Campaign, a coalition of 72 […]
Posted inAugust 13, 2001: No refuge in the Klamath Basin
Court helps candidates
NATION More than 200 wildlife and plant species have waited years for a spot on the federal endangered species list. A recent court decision could soon put an end to their wait. On June 20, the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals overturned a 1996 U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service ban on citizen petitions to list […]
Posted inAugust 13, 2001: No refuge in the Klamath Basin
Predators keep their pelts
COLORADO In Colorado, three species of fur-bearing predators will hold onto their skins for a little longer. In its July meeting, the Colorado Wildlife Commission decided to not allow live-cage trapping and shooting seasons for the swift fox, pine marten and opossum. Commission chair Rick Enstrom, who cast the tie vote which killed the Colorado […]
Posted inAugust 13, 2001: No refuge in the Klamath Basin
On the trail of an exotic ‘native’
Long considered an “exotic” species, wild horses occupy a sort of borderland, caught between the mythology of their origins and the reality of their plight today. This is the subject of a new documentary, El Caballo, by Drury Gunn Carr and Doug Hawes-Davis. Known for their hard-hitting documentary films, Varmints (HCN,10/26/98: Varmints) and Killing Coyote […]
Posted inAugust 13, 2001: No refuge in the Klamath Basin
Old firefighters need not apply
Forest Service regulations are keeping experienced workers off the fireline
Posted inJuly 30, 2001: Not in our back yard
Logging cut short for salmon
OREGON Salmon in the Pacific Northwest just got a break. In late May, the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that the National Marine Fisheries Service must re-examine how logging affects endangered salmon before 24 federal timber sales can proceed. That may mean loggers would provide larger buffers around riparian areas, thin units instead of […]
Posted inJuly 30, 2001: Not in our back yard
Bush fails to defend roadless rule
The roadless rule for national forest lands is still alive – but it’s caught in a legal and bureaucratic labyrinth. On July 9, the Bush administration missed the deadline to appeal a decision by U.S. District Court Judge Edward Lodge. The Idaho judge had blocked the roadless rule with a preliminary injunction in May, citing […]
Posted inJuly 30, 2001: Not in our back yard
Norton snubs grizzlies
MONTANA, IDAHO Unless they make it by their own devices, grizzly bears likely won’t return to the Bitterroot Mountains anytime soon. On June 20, Interior Secretary Gale Norton set aside a Clinton-era plan to reintroduce the bears to the wilderness of central Idaho and western Montana. Under the old plan, grizzly recovery would have been […]