You Be the Judge: Healthy Forest Logging?
By Matthew Koehler, New West Unfiltered 1-25-08
The photos at the link above are from the Middle East Fork logging project, the first Healthy Forests Restoration Act logging project in Montana. This area is up the East Fork of the Bitterroot River east of Sula on the Bitterroot National Forest.
This logging was done in 2007 under the guise of "community fire protection" and "restoring fire adapted ecosystems," even though the area sits four miles from the nearest home. Also, please keep in mind that the areas pictured were never logged before and were previously considered old-growth habitat by the Forest Service until 2005 – when they resurveyed it and determined it wasn't old-growth habitat after all so they could log it. Look at the area now!
As you may recall, this has been a pretty controversial project since it was proposed in 2005 because the Forest Service and the logging industry wanted to cut down nearly 2,500 acres of previously unlogged forests far from homes under the guise of "restoration" and "fuel reduction."
The WildWest Institute and Friends of the Bitterroot supported nearly 2,000 acres of careful and strategic fuel reduction immediately adjacent to homes as part of this project, but we filed a lawsuit to stop the most egregious logging.
Unfortunately, our lawsuit is still pending in the federal court of appeals and while the wheels of justice move slowly the logging, er, I mean "fuel reduction" and "restoration," continues.
http://www.wildwestinstitute.org/pdf/MEF_Logging.pdf [End of article]