"To reduce trade in illegally harvested wood, a global initiative was launched today in Washington that brings together conservation groups, government agencies, corporations and business associations with a stake in promoting legal forest product supply chains."
Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility obtained and disclosed a USFS memo ordering its law enforcement personnel not to talk to reporters about anything without first getting clearance from its Washington director and press office.
"The battle between forestry companies protecting their timber supply and environmentalists trying to save the trees has been too fierce to hide in the shade of Canada's vast boreal forest. But after decades of fighting, the bitter foes have agreed to bury the hatchet."
A new report by the US Geological Survey, Bureau of Reclamation, US Forest Service, other federal agencies, and university experts says the water-hogging reputation of the two species has little merit, but found that effects on wildlife are mixed.
The USFS Forest Legacy Program has awarded a total of $72 million to 36 property owners in 33 states and territories to apply conservation easements to their land, with the goal of preventing development or other uses of the land that would reduce its forest value.
"Legislation would transfer prized sections to an Alaska Native company for logging. Native leaders say it's long overdue. Preservationists are outraged."
"Activists in Mexico complain that the deforestation threatening the environmental health of Mexico has been accentuated by the granting of public areas to private companies."
Monongahela National Forest's public affairs officer recently directed employees there that, if contacted by national reporters on any issue or local reporters regarding national issues, they "cannot talk to the reporter"and suggested that the instructions came from "our Washington office."
"A federal judge has thrown out an industry lawsuit that could have led to more logging and road building in Alaska's Tongass National Forest, the nation's largest federal forest."
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