NEWS ROUNDUP
 
Editorial: Roadless Rules Write-Off  "VENEMAN ACTS to Conserve Roadless Areas in National Forests." So read the Orwellian headline on the Agriculture Department's announcement Monday about Secretary Ann M. Veneman's move to junk a Clinton administration rule that protected nearly 60 million acres of national forest from road-building, logging and other development. But no one should buy the Bush administration's effort to give this anti-environmental action a green spin: It had pledged to uphold the roadless measure, but its proposal would instead eviscerate protections for some of the country's last unspoiled wilderness....
Happy trails? Forest Service proposal guardedly welcomed by 4x4 clubs   Responding to a dramatic increase in off-road vehicle activity, the U.S. Forest Service announced a new proposal July 7 that it hopes will help curb abuses and protect national forest lands. Local forest rangers and off-road enthusiasts, while applauding the intent, wonder how it will be enforced by the already financially strapped agency....
Conservation groups asks for halt to six timber sales  Conservationists have asked a federal court in Medford for a temporary restraining order to halt old growth logging in the area burned by the 2002 Biscuit fire.  The group — comprised of eight environmental groups including the Sierra Club — are asking the court to halt six sales in old growth reserves of the Siskiyou National Forest.... 
Agency Seeks to End Gray Wolf Protection The gray wolf, which once nearly disappeared in the lower 48 states, is making such a comeback that the Interior Department wants to lift federal protection for the animal in the eastern two-thirds of the country. Interior Secretary Gale Norton was to announce on Friday a proposed rule that would lift protection under the Endangered Species act for gray wolves in Minnesota, Wisconsin and Michigan, where there are significant populations, as well as in at least 20 other states....
'Science' and the decline of the spotted owl Ten years ago, an allegedly declining number of northern spotted owls in the Pacific Northwest was used by environmentalists and the Clinton administration to virtually shut down the cutting of so-called old growth forests on public lands across the region. The policy, not surprisingly, has been catastrophic for the area's economy and turned many once-thriving timber towns into rural ghettos, with high unemployment rates and increased reliance on government handouts, including federal "spotted owl payments." But a decade later, what has resulted from of this costly effort to save the beloved spotted owl? Nothing much, as it turns out. The owl's numbers aren't rebounding, as expected, and this trend has less to do with the preservation of forests, scientists are now realizing, than with the predatory predilections of a winged rival, the barred owl....
Redford on record Robert Redford said he’s earned the right to criticize the Bush administration’s environmental record. And he does it with gusto. “Don’t try to change this administration ; they’re not going to change,” Redford told a crowd of several hundred people Wednesday at the Randall Davey Audubon Center in Santa Fe. “They seem to almost enjoy trying to destroy the environment.”....
Kerry vs. Bush on environmental issues Environmental issues are shaping up to play a larger role in the presidential race than many political analysts had expected as both the Bush and Kerry campaigns seek to leverage their support in swing states.  Democratic candidate John Kerry has sought to portray President Bush as sacrificing the environment to curry favor with industry allies, while Bush charges that the Massachusetts senator's environmental proposals would cost millions of jobs and devastate the economy.  While those arguments may be overshadowed nationally by public concern about Iraq and the war on terrorism, both campaigns are waging a fierce contest over a range of environmental issues that have special regional significance....
Officials frustrated by parks studies  Park County leaders say they are frustrated by plans for yet another study of snowmobiling in Yellowstone and Grand Teton national parks.  "How many times do we have to do this?" Commissioner Tim French asked recently. "Round and round we go, over and over again."  The National Park Service, following a federal court order, has been working on a temporary winter-use plan for the parks and the John D. Rockefeller Jr. Memorial Parkway. The plan will guide winter management while two federal lawsuits over the issue are being resolved....
Hearst Land Plan Gains Support  Overflowing a beachfront veterans hall Thursday night, a generally enthusiastic crowd of 400 people heard the details of a plan to preserve the Hearst Ranch and bring to an end three decades of public wrangling over the fate of one of the state's most beguiling stretches of coastal real estate. It was the first airing of a proposal that would transfer 13 miles of beaches to the state and bar development on most of the rest of the ranch.  In return, the Hearsts would receive $95 million and rights to build a 100-room hotel, 27 homes scattered across 200 acres, 15 units of employee housing and 3,600 acres of orchards, vineyards and row crops....
GC Trust ready to saddle up    A Flagstaff-based environmental group is getting into the ranching business.  The Grand Canyon Trust announced Wednesday that it has partnered with the Virginia-headquartered Conservation Fund to secure a purchase option for the Kane and Two Mile ranches.  But it still has to raise $4.5 million to complete the deal....
Poisoning too little, too late for grasshopper plague, ranchers say  Clouds of grasshoppers splattered onto the windshield of Walt Ford's truck as he drove through Klamath Marsh National Wildlife Refuge on the Silver Lake Highway Thursday."They have been marching across this road for two weeks," said Ford, manager of the refuge....
BLM to round up horses near Eureka The U.S. Bureau of Land Management successfully rounded up horses near Eureka only to find it is going to have to do it again.  John Winnepenninkx, assistant field manager for renewable resources for the Battle Mountain BLM office, said some 338 horses being gathered in the Diamond Mountain Complex east of Eureka are “agile and in good shape.”  But he said horses west of Eureka, in the Fish Creek Herd Management Area, are in trouble because their water source has dried up, so BLM hauled two large water tanks to them earlier this week....
Conservation groups oppose rural Nevada land bill Conservation and ranching groups are opposing a congressional bill they say would let Southern Nevada drain rural Nevada counties of water and harm the region’s environment.  The group contends the Lincoln County Conservation, Recreation and Development Act of 2004 would authorize a route for a Southern Nevada Water Authority pipeline to send water from sensitive areas in Eastern Nevada to Las Vegas....
Warming up to a new treaty?    WHEN SEN. JOHN Edwards addressed The Chronicle editorial board in February before the Democratic primaries, I asked him if he would ask the Senate to ratify the Kyoto global warming treaty. "Yes," the presidential candidate answered. Then, he added, he believed Sen. John Kerry shared his position. Wrong.  The next day, when presidential candidate Kerry talked to The Chronicle editorial board, he said that he would not ask the Senate to ratify Kyoto....
Kulongoski's Natural Resources Advisor resigns   Gov. Ted Kulongoski's top natural resources advisor, who was sometimes a target of environmentalists, is resigning after 19 months on the job, according to the governor's office.  Jim Brown, Kulongoski's director of natural resources policy, will retire Sept. 1, after 19 months on the job, citing a desire to spend more time with his family, according to a statement released Thursday by the governor's office....
Group with no-growth objective calls it quits    As Andy Kerr sees it, Alternatives to Growth Oregon failed at a lofty goal: trying to change the course of western civilization.  Blaming evaporating funding, group leaders last month gave up their five-year effort to slow or halt population growth in Oregon. The organization was the state's only voice consistently linking traffic congestion, pollution and other problems to a swelling population.  "We staked out a goal that was not going to be met, at least in the short term," said Kerr, the founder. "The whole course of western civilization has been growth, growth, growth, growth."....
Basque sheepherders left their mark with bark art With dates that extend well back into the 1920s, many of the aspen carvings -- known as dendroglyphs -- were left by Basque sheepherders. They arrived in northern Arizona in the late 1800s after a series of events led them to the Southwest's mountain regions....