"SEATTLE - Faced with increasing criticism of a proposal that would restrict media filming in wilderness areas, the head of the U.S. Forest Service said late Thursday that the rule is not intended to apply to news-gathering activities."
"Brazil has refused to sign up to a pact setting a deadline for ending deforestation entirely by 2030."
"The U.S. Forest Service has tightened restrictions on media coverage in vast swaths of the country's wild lands, requiring reporters to pay for a permit and get permission before shooting a photo or video in federally designated wilderness areas."
The U.S. Forest Service is seeking to harden rules that would require a journalist to get a permit and pay a fee of up to $1,500 in order to report inside a federal wilderness. [Update -- 9/25/14: Forest Service Chief Tidwell says media don't need permit]
"Moving to halt a powerful contributor to climate change, the United States has joined more than 110 corporations, civil society groups and governments to launch a global initiative to reduce deforestation sharply over the next 15 years, with the goal of eliminating the practice by 2030."
"An expanding wildfire in Northern California has reached 82,018 acres, or more than 128 square miles, as of Sunday morning, California fire officials said."
"More residents of Northern California mountain communities were told to leave their homes on Thursday after an out-of-control wildfire doubled in size overnight, scorching more than 100 square miles of drought-parched timber and brush."
"Fire crews in California battled on Tuesday to halt the advance of wildfire that has already destroyed about 150 homes, lapped at rural schools and caused power outages that left an evacuation shelter without electricity, authorities said."
"Climate change could kill up to 90 percent of the forests covering the Rocky Mountains, warned the nonprofit Union of Concerned Scientists today in a new study based in part on projections made by the U.S. Forest Service."
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