Tree-sitters leave BLM no choice but to close lands, official says

A timber sale east of Myrtle Creek meant to showcase an environmentally sensitive approach to logging may be canceled if federal managers can’t close the land to oust protesters, a Bureau of Land Management official said Thursday. The director of the BLM’s Roseburg District, Abbie Jossie, said closing 15 miles of roads and 2,167 acres is the only course of action the BLM could take to legally remove anti-logging tree-sitters. Jossie told The News-Review Editorial Board that the BLM may have to nix the White Castle timber sale if the Interior Board of Appeals in Washington, D.C., rejects the closure request. She said if the sale is canceled, she doesn’t know what precedent it will set for future timber sales opposed by anti-logging activists. Jossie said the BLM concluded there wasn’t the legal authority to enlist the help of the Douglas County Sheriff’s Office to arrest the tree-sitters, who have strategically positioned themselves to block construction of a logging road. She said the BLM did not have the resources to continually remove a rotating cast of activists. The board of appeals has until the beginning of February to act on an appeal filed by Cascadia Forest Defenders to bar the BLM from closing the public lands. The board could let the closure go into effect by not taking any action. The BLM has proposed closing the land for up to two years. The Scott Timber Co., a subsidiary of Roseburg Forest Products, bid $1.335 million and was awarded a contract last May to log 6.4 million board feet. Jossie said the timber company had planned to move quickly on the sale, but has been held up since June, when Cascadia Forest Defenders volunteers started occupying trees within the 187-acre timber sale...more

 Jossie said the BLM concluded there wasn’t the legal authority to enlist the help of the Douglas County Sheriff’s Office to arrest the tree-sitters.  I don't understand that. Sec.303(c)(1)of FLPMA states,"When the Secretary determines that assistance is necessary in enforcing Federal laws and regulations relating to the public lands or their resources he shall offer a contract to appropriate local officials having law enforcement authority within their respective jurisdictions with the view of achieving maximum feasible reliance upon local law enforcement officials in enforcing such laws and regulations." The BLM has signed these type of contracts all over the West.