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Injunction Protects Old Forest and Wildlife
Monday Feb 06, 2006
US District Judge Marsha Pechman issued an injunction blocking up to 144 timber sales planned by the US Forest Service, many of them in old growth.
Before logging, forests must first be "surveyed and managed" for rare plants and animals
US District Judge Marsha Pechman issued an injunction blocking up to 144 timber sales planned by the US Forest Service.
In August of 2005 Pechman struck down the Bush Administration's 2004 decision to eliminate the "survey and manage" rule from the 1994 Northwest Forest Plan, which originally required that the Forest Service and Bureau of Land Management look for and protect rare plants and animals before carrying out logging on over 5 million acres of forest, over half of which is old-growth.
Pechman did not, however, decide if she would allow 144 timber sales approved since the rule's adoption to proceed until Monday's injunction. The protection of over 300 species of plant and animal under the old rule outweighed the projected loss of $2.7 million in goverment revenues.
Judge Pechman emphasized that the court should not be concerned with any money the government may make by breaking the law.
Conservation Northwest's Dave Werntz and Pete Frost of the Western Environmental Law Center in Oregon said that the goverment has suggested some of the 144 timber sales already meet the criteria of the old rule and will thus be allowed to continue. The government has yet to say how many such sales exist.
The 144 sales compromize and estimated 289 million board feet, over half of the total number harvested under the Northwest Forest plan in 2004.