Federal Judge Puts Final Nail in Coffin of Bush-Era Logging Plan
From EcoWatch:
On March 20, a federal court in Oregon formally struck down a Bush-era plan that abandoned scientific protections for federal public lands in western Oregon and would have opened up those lands to outdated boom-and-bust logging. The plan, called the Western Oregon Plan Revision (known as WOPR and pronounced “whopper”) would have dramatically increased logging on about 2.6 million acres of federal public forests in Oregon managed by the Bureau of Land Management (BLM).
The ruling came in response to a lawsuit filed by Earthjustice and Western Environmental Law Center on behalf of nine conservation and commercial fishing organizations.
“This ruling is the final nail in WOPR’s coffin,” said Kristen Boyles, an attorney with Earthjustice. “These public forests protect our climate, provide us with clean water, and sustain world class salmon runs and recreational opportunities that contribute to Oregon’s diverse economy. Now they will no longer be haunted by an outdated, unbalanced plan,” she said.
With rulings like this, hope springs eternal for the lungs of the planet and the storehouses of untold tons of carbon they contain, and the watersheds and the wildlife and all the other dimensions of living with standing forests in already-hammered landscapes.
Let’s redefine appropriate scales of extraction and alternative means of economic livelihoods which don’t create addictions to proven socio-economic and planetary dead ends.
Great news on the first day of spring !