NEWS ROUNDUP

National wildfire group sets example for Healthy Forests law Participants in a public-private program that fights fire with fire said Thursday that their approach is setting an example for what can be accomplished under the new Healthy Forests Restoration Act. The Fire Learning Network on Friday concludes a four-day workshop focusing on how to prevent or limit destructive wildfires by using prescribed burns and other methods. Many environmentalists fear the Healthy Forests law will give loggers free rein in the nation's timberlands, but the network's experience shows there's another way, said Jeff Hardesty, director of The Nature Conservancy's Global Fire Initiative...Conference: Dry forests will burn and it will be a disaster A University of Washington forester, discussing the importance of fire resilient forests, described one certainty in today's Pacific Northwest forests: "If no action is taken in dry forests, they will certainly burn and it will be a disaster." Dr. Jim Agee, UW professor of forest ecology, made his observation during a conference in Portland on "Risk Assessment for Decision-Making Related to Uncharacteristic Wildfire."...Trails plan riles many Stanislaus National Forest officials today released a plan to manage 8,700 acres of Arnold area land crisscrossed with off-highway-vehicle trails that neighbors and OHV users have feuded over for a decade. The plan both reduces the miles of trail that bikers and four-wheelers can ride and leaves a half-mile buffer between homes and OHV paths...Administration axes an environment safeguard, Rule changed to expedite forest thinning Under the Endangered Species Act, the Forest Service and other federal agencies are required to seek confirmation from the Fish and Wildlife Service or the National Marine Fisheries Service before taking any action that may adversely affect any endangered plant or animal. The new policy, which does not require congressional approval, authorizes biologists for the Forest Service or other land management agency to make the call that no endangered species would be adversely affected, exempting them from consulting with the agencies whose main mandate is protecting rare plants and animals. The Bush administration stressed that the policy will not reduce the level of protection for rare animals and plants...U.S. ranger's home vandalized, Damage inflicted days after tree-sitters are sent to jail Days after two environmentalists were sent to jail for a treetop protest earlier this year, a Klamath National Forest ranger was the victim of "malicious" vandalism, officials said Wednesday. Salmon River District Ranger Chance Gowan discovered his home had been spray-painted with graffiti, and that someone had entered his garage, the Siskiyou County Sheriff's Department said. Klamath forest spokesman Brian Harris said no connection had been officially drawn between the vandalism and the logging protesters. But the graffiti seemed to be "a protest to forest management issues," he said. "It (the vandalism) certainly targeted an individual that's been involved in all those timber sales," Harris said...Appeals court rejects Lolo logging plan A plan to log areas burned in the Lolo National Forest during the 2000 fire season has been rejected by an appeals court. The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said the Forest Service did not take "the necessary hard look" at the effects of logging on unroaded areas. The decision reverses a lower court ruling by U.S. District Judge Don Molloy of Missoula upholding much of the Forest Service's logging plan. The court, in a decision released Thursday by the Forest Service, said logging in an unroaded area is an "irreversible and irretrievable" action that could damage the environment. The court said the Forest Service's study of the logging project's potential impact was superficial...Animal welfare groups seek federal protection for Alaska sea otters Two Bay Area animal welfare groups sued the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service on Thursday to force the federal government to place an Alaska sea otter population on the endangered species list. "I want the federal government to begin protecting the sea otters from extinction," said Brent Plater, a lawyer for the Center for Biological Diversity in Oakland, Calif. "We are asking the government not to stand idly by and let this species go extinct." The lawsuit was filed in U.S. District Court in San Francisco by the center and the San Francisco-based Turtle Island Restoration Network against Interior Secretary Gale Norton, Assistant Secretary Craig Manson and the Fish and Wildlife Service...Column: Balance on the Rio Grande When two federal courts applied the Endangered Species Act to prevent the extinction of the Rio Grande silvery minnow, they sought to implement this legislated balance. But when New Mexico Senators Pete Domenici and Jeff Bingaman, together with Representatives Heather Wilson and Steven Pearce, attached a rider to the Energy and Water funding bill last month, they exempted Albuquerque from the balance equation. They tipped the balance in favor of some river users at the expense of others...Judge says aerial photos of Streisand's mansion not invasion of privacy Not even Hollywood royalty is above the First Amendment. Rejecting a $10 million lawsuit that Barbra Streisand had filed against Silicon Valley millionaire and environmentalist Ken Adelman, a judge ruled Wednesday that Adelman did not violate the diva's privacy when he photographed her Malibu oceanfront mansion as part of a project to post more than 12,700 aerial photos of the California coastline on his Web site...Parks mull amount of ranching in future Proposals in the Concepts Newsletter 2003 unveiled this week vary greatly. At one extreme, Concept 3 would like to get rid of at least some of the ranches now leased to families who -- back in the 1960s -- were forced to sell their land to the National Seashore. These ranchers and their children have been allowed to lease their family lands back from the park, but ranchers who in the 1960s did not own the lands they ranched were refused lease-backs and had to leave. "Beef and dairy ranching would continue," says Concept 3, "until original permittees discontinue ranching activities." Doesn't this amount to over time phasing out ranching on Point Reyes? "It would not be phased out," Dell'Osso replied. "It would be reduced."...BLM restricts access to reports U.S. Bureau of Land Management files documenting inspections, violations and enforcement on public lands in Wyoming will no longer be readily available to the public, BLM officials said Wednesday. A policy statement issued two weeks ago to field offices throughout the state forbids employees to release any inspection records for oil and gas operations on federal lands and minerals without a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request. Some documents are entirely off limits to the public for an undefined length of time, according to the e-mail statement from state inspection and enforcement program head John Shufflebarger...Editorial: Public planning in private hands If blindly hiring mining advocates to write a management blueprint for Steens Mountain is the Bush administration's model for shifting public planning to private consultants, then Americans should have none of it. As The Oregonian's Michael Milstein reported Wednesday, the U.S. Bureau of Land Management hired a consulting firm led by two Western mining advocates to draw up management options for the Southeast Oregon landmark. The BLM apparently knew nothing of the firm's deep connections to the mining industry until Milstein recently brought them to its attention... Lieberman asks Interior to release surveys of disputed Utah roads Presidential aspirant and Connecticut Sen. Joe Lieberman asked Interior Secretary Gale Norton to release information her department has gathered regarding road claims across federal lands in Utah. Utah has submitted a series of claims to Utah roads and expects to make more under an agreement between Norton and former Gov. Mike Leavitt that establishes a criteria and process for the federal government to cede control of the roads to the state. A 1993 Interior Department report to Congress identified 5,000 potential ownership claims under a Civil War-era mining law known as R.S. 2477...Five appeal East Fork grazing decision Coming in at the final hour, five appeals to the East Fork allotment grazing decision arrived at the Sawtooth National Forest last Monday. Two appellants ask for no grazing whatsoever, while three others are asking for more alternatives and a stay for the next grazing season. This fall, the Sawtooth National Recreation Area (SNRA) issued a decision that effectively cut current grazing numbers in half for at least five years and permanently closed thousands of acres to grazing. Three of the appellants are current permittees on the East Fork allotments and are asking, among other things, for a stay of the decision to cut back grazing numbers and close acreage to cattle. The Boulder White Clouds Council (BWCC) and Western Watersheds Project (WWP) filed an appeal together asserting that the "no grazing" Alternative 3 is the logical choice to meet the needs of the resource on all the allotments...