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New Forest Guidelines Threaten Wildlife; Conservationists Challenge Controversial Logging Project |
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SILVER CITY, NEW MEXICO, Oct. 24 -/E-Wire/--
Rejecting a decade of restoration-based forest management, the U.S. Forest Service has unilaterally revised its guidelines for management of wildlife on national forests in Arizona and New Mexico. The Center for Biological Diversity has filed a formal objection to the first logging project to be proposed under the new guidelines.
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The Jack Smith/Schultz timber sale on the Coconino National Forest near Flagstaff, Arizona, would log more than 8,000 acres, including an undisclosed number of large, old-growth trees. It is the first project to explicitly implement the agency's major changes to the Northern Goshawk Management Guidelines, which the Forest Service developed in 1996 in response to litigation by the Center over the agency's poor record of protecting the imperiled species. In the spring of 2007, the Forest Service made major changes to the 1996 Northern Goshawk Guidelines, which affect management of all ponderosa pine forest on national forests in the Southwest. The new guidelines could signal a new round of timber wars in the Southwest.
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"The Forest Service has illegally amended every forest plan in the Southwest Region by failing to involve the public and state agencies prior to implementing this substantial weakening of the Goshawk Guidelines," said Todd Schulke of the Center. "The new Forest Service guidelines will spell disaster for the goshawk, and for southwestern old growth forests."
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The Goshawk Guidelines require the Forest Service to leave a specified percentage of the forest as canopy cover to provide habitat for goshawks and their prey. The changes will significantly weaken this requirement, and could lead to dramatically increased logging of large, old-growth trees.
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Despite the significance of the changes, the Forest Service provided no public notice prior to revising the Goshawk Guidelines across the region. The public and other agencies were provided no opportunity to provide official comment or otherwise be involved in the controversial revisions to the guidelines.
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The Arizona Department of Game and Fish submitted comments on the Jack Smith project that were critical of the agency's changes to the Northern Goshawk Guidelines, recognizing that the change "has the potential to significantly reduce the amount of forest cover within treated areas," and could lead to the Forest Service not meeting habitat requirements for the northern goshawk and its prey. (See Jack Smith Draft Environmental Assessment, pages 221-222, available on request or at the Forest Service's Web site.)
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Despite admitting that past logging has already removed the majority of old trees, and that the project area is already significantly below forest plan standards for old growth, the Forest Service imposed no size limit on the trees harvested by the Jack Smith project and did not offer an estimate as to the number of large, old-growth trees that would be cut down.
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Because the Jack Smith project is being implemented pursuant to the Healthy Forest Restoration Act, the Forest Service is expediting the project and is expected to respond to the Center's objection within 30 days. The Center is requesting public comment on changes to the Goshawk Guidelines before they are implemented and a 16-inch-diameter limit on the proposed logging to protect critical wildlife habitat.
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The Center was joined in its objection to the project by Forest Guardians, a conservation organization headquartered in Santa Fe, New Mexico.
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The Center for Biological Diversity is a nonprofit conservation organization with more than 35,000 members dedicated to the protection of endangered species and wild places. Contact Info:
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Todd Schulke
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Center for Biological Diversity
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Tel: 505-574-5962 Website : the Center for Biological Diversity
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