Forest Service cancels Grand Canyon logging

The U.S. Forest Service has canceled plans to allow logging on parts of 26,000 acres of the Kaibab National Forest on the Grand Canyon's North Rim. The logging plan was opposed by environmental groups. They argued that it allowed older, large trees to be cut, damaging habitat needed by the endangered northern goshawk and removing too much of the forest canopy. The Forest Service says in a letter to the Sierra Club and the Center for Biological Diversity that its approved plan didn't comply with its own forest management plan and required goshawk protections. It will now make changes and present the plan again. The logging was approved in February in an area between the North Rim and Jacob Lake. The site is next to 58,000 acres that burned in 2006. AP