NEWS ROUNDUP

Forest Service trades land with logging company The U.S. Forest Service and California's largest private landowner have agreed to a land swap they say will benefit both of them and the public. The Forest Service will give Anderson-based Sierra Pacific Industries 1,843 acres of the Eldorado National Forest, broken into 14 parcels, in exchange for 16 parcels totaling 3,394 acres, under an agreement posted this week. The lands were appraised at equal market value, the Forest Service said. The exchange will reduce the need for Sierra Pacific to build new roads to its parcels within what are supposed to be roadless areas, helping the company manage its property more efficiently and meet federal and state laws, the Forest Service said.... Lawmakers want Frank Church airstrips kept open Idaho's congressional delegation says pilots have used four backcountry airstrips for more than two decades. And the lawmakers want them kept open. The U-S Forest Service recently ruled that four airstrips in the Frank Church-River of No Return Wilderness would be shut down except for emergency use. The ruling is part of the revised management plan for the wilderness.... Salvage logging is key issue for forest ecologists A group of forest ecologists wants the world to stop rushing to turn trees killed by wildfire into lumber, arguing that salvage logging undermines many of the ecological benefits of fire. In an opinion piece in the journal Science on Thursday, seven forest ecologists from universities in the United States, Canada and Australia suggested a better course would be for forest managers to develop policies that exempt areas such as natural parks, nature reserves and drinking water sources from salvage logging.... Column: Biscuit salvage sale: a lost opportunity for Oregon After a yearlong study, the U.S. Forest Service has concluded that the Siskiyou National Forest land burned by last year's Biscuit Fire needs a massive restoration effort including reforestation, road and stream rehabilitation and timber salvage. If implemented, this will be one of the largest timber sales in Oregon history, more timber than has been produced from all the public lands in the Northwest in some years. Unfortunately, the Forest Service's plan is misguided at its very foundation, and we will likely never see these benefits.... Mo. River plan allows barge operations The Army Corps of Engineers issued a new Missouri River plan Friday that would allow continued barge traffic between Sioux City, Iowa, and St. Louis, perpetuating a 15-year battle between environmentalists and businesses. Corps officials said the new plan anticipates steady levels for barge shipping, enough water for power generation and considerably more water in big reservoirs in Montana and the Dakotas. Conservationists have long argued that the Missouri should be returned to its natural state, before it was dammed and channeled beginning in the 1940s, with a spring rise and shallow summer flow to aid endangered species.... New act changes protection for endangered species (Canada) New federal legislation is about to dramatically change the way endangered plants and animals are protected in Canada. The Species at Risk Act goes into force June 1. It will add another layer of protection for endangered animals under federal legislation. The law will brings in incentives and penalties designed to protect threatened animals and plants on all federal land. It can also override the provinces in their own jurisdiction and on private land. Some Alberta landowners are concerned that the act could hurt them financially, if large chunks of their grazing land are declared off-limits. But the government says Ottawa can compensate landowners if they end up being hurt by the new legislation.... GRAY WOLF DE-LISTING PART I Since its introduction into the Idaho wilderness in 1995, the Gray Wolf has sparked debate between those looking to restore the wolf population and those wanting to keep the wolf out of Idaho. In the first part of his series, Mark Browning takes a look at the Gray Wolf's return to Idaho. Good morning everyone. Few things in Idaho and Wyoming have stirred the emotion, the passion, and the debate as have the efforts to restore a Gray Wolf population to this region, and now possibly remove federal protection by de-listing the wolf from the endangered species list. Tonight, in the first of a week long look at the issue, we look at events over the past decade that has brought us to this point of potential de-listing.... GRAY WOLF DELISTING PART II Part two of the debate over wolves in Idaho continues. Mark Browning looks at the toll the re-introduction of wolves has taken on local ranchers.... GRAY WOLF DELISTING PART III In part three of "The Gray Wolf: A Wild Cry of Success," Mark Browning looks at some of the myths involved of the sometimes emotional issue of wolf delisting.... Tight vote expected on 'basin of origin’ bill Rep. John Salazar expects to stump the House floor this morning in hopes of convincing his colleagues to approve the state’s first basin-of-origin protection in more than 80 years. “If this bill is passed, rural Colorado will no longer have to fear that water diversions will be shoved down their throats,” the San Luis Valley Democrat said.... Campus Wolfs Down Film on Price of Lupine Liberty A film showing tonight will bring a heated environmental debate from the wilderness of Idaho to the screen at Campbell Hall. "Cost of Freedom" follows wolves relocated from Canada to Idaho as part of an effort to restore endangered species in the United States. In 1995, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service captured 66 wolves in Canada and released them in Montana, Idaho and Wyoming. Filmmaker Vanessa Schulz said that as part of the relocation, the wolves were given special "experimental-nonessential" status, which permits the killing of wolves if they attack livestock.... Ranchers support consolidated public lands management Ranchers gave their support Friday to a plan that would consolidate management of 1.3 million acres of national forest and rangeland in Twin Falls and Cassia counties. Consultants for the Idaho Department of Lands held a meeting Friday night at the Idaho Farm Bureau office in Twin Falls to gauge reactions to the proposal they plan to put forward in the form of federal legislation.... Redrock lands rank among most endangered 'BioGems' Utah lands targeted by activists for wilderness protection -- and by energy companies for oil and gas exploration -- are among the most endangered places in the Western Hemisphere, according to one of the nation's largest environmental groups. For the fourth year in a row, the redrock wilderness of southern and eastern Utah on Thursday landed on the list of "BioGems" designated by the Washington, D.C.-based Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC). The group hopes the listing will bring more national, even international, attention to portions of a 9.1 million-acre Utah wilderness proposal that the U.S. Bureau of Land Management (BLM) is opening up to oil and gas companies.... BLM begins dunes study A federal agency has launched a four-month program to monitor a threatened plant that has led to closures in the California desert's most popular off-roading area. The U.S. Bureau of Land Management said Thursday that 33 interns will scour the Imperial Sand Dunes Recreation Area until June looking for Pierson's milk-vetch and other imperiled wildlife to establish populations counts.... Column: Grazing permit buyout fair, will end range warThe national and Arizona voluntary grazing permit buyout bills, currently pending in Congress, offer a "win-win" solution for ranchers and the environment. A total of 180 Arizona ranchers and 190 environmental organizations are supporting the Arizona bill and a permanent buyout option, and the list of supporters is growing. Yet there are still uninformed naysayers who don't realize that the buyout will help ranchers, protect the environment, and save taxpayers money. Opponents to the legislation fear that once ranchers receive the buyout payment, they'll likely sell off private base properties, thus accelerating land fragmentation and development. To the contrary, with the money ranchers receive from the buyout, they'll not only have money to keep their private property, but they can also buy other private lands to ranch.... Park in Colorado stirs EPA concern Hike through Rocky Mountain National Park, enjoy the wildlife and take a deep breath of mountain air - as long as you're not asthmatic. The wind blows enough pollution from sprawling metropolitan Denver on some days that the park violates federal clean-air standards for ozone. The Environmental Protection Agency probably will include the park when it declares 11 counties along Colorado's Front Range in violation of the Clean Air Act.... Trust-land reform bill proposed A plan to change the way Arizona manages nearly 10 million acres of undeveloped state trust land was delivered Friday to the governor and the Legislature on its way to a possible spot on the Nov. 2 ballot. Outlined in more than 100 pages of revisions to state law and the state Constitution, the plan aims to create more open space around the edges of cities, raise more money for public schools and better protect millions of acres in rural Arizona. If voters approve the changes, about 287,000 acres would be set aside as open space immediately and an additional 387,000 acres would be eligible for preservation by cities and private organizations.... Court stops exhumation of fabled ranch scion An appellate court has halted exhumation of a rancher's body in a paternity lawsuit with claims to a 400,000-acre ranch now largely controlled by the Catholic Church. The 13th Court of Appeals on Wednesday upheld its Feb. 9 order stopping the exhumation of fabled ranch scion John G. Kenedy. The court clarified its order Thursday after plaintiff attorneys questioned whether it applied to different cases alleging that John G. Kenedy, believed sterile due to childhood mumps, left an heir after all.... Column, Meet the Farm Bureau: Does it Speak for the Family Farmer—or for Large-Scale Agribusiness? The state of family farming in America can perhaps be gauged by one of AFBF’s own polls, which asked its 5.4 million members how they would rate the overall condition of their rural towns. Some 32 percent said they were “withering slowly,” and another 20 percent said they were “hanging by a thread.” AFBF is the nation’s largest trade organization for farmers, but an increasing number of farmers and farming groups say its corporate-friendly policies favor large agribusiness interests. And they ask if most of AFBF’s members really are farmers, since the U.S. Department of Agriculture says that only 2.1 million Americans meet that definition.... Cattlemen Push Beef with Bush A U.S. meat industry group on Friday accused the Bush administration of moving too slowly to normalize beef and cattle trade with Canada and called for an immediate end to all controls put in place last spring after mad cow disease was discovered in Alberta. "The time for incremental half-measures ... has long since passed," the American Meat Institute, which represents major meat packers, wrote in a letter to Agriculture Secretary Ann Veneman. USDA spokeswoman Julie Quick said it was premature to comment on a request to fully open beef and cattle trade with Canada. She also rejected AMI's criticisms that the agency has been slow to normalize trade with Canada, saying it was a "top priority." ....HONED ON THE RANGE Byron Fort walks out his back door into a winter morning as gray-white as his mare, Dolly, and as cold and forbidding as a barbed-wire fence. Leaning into the stinging wind, he pushes his 88-year-old bones across a thin layer of snow toward some corrals and stalls off to the side of his house. The snow had come in the night. So had a calf from a young Angus cow. Anticipating both, Fort had put the cow in a stall the afternoon before so she wouldn't drop her offspring wet and frail into an exposed pasture where it'd likely freeze to death before it could draw its first breaths.... On The Edge Of Common Sense: Bad luck comes in threes on the ranch In the old days, I resigned myself that bad luck came in threes: three flat tires, three smashed fingers or three social faux pas. It's comforting to know that good ol' Dakota Mike is still proving my theory. And I'm not even counting the initial injury that resulted in a swollen right knee that put him down for a solid week....