Forest Service Halts Huge Clearcutting Plan Next to Yellowstone National Park that Threatened Grizzl

[douglas9]

WEST YELLOWSTONE, MONTANA— Following a challenge by multiple conservation groups, the U.S. Forest Service announced Thursdaythat it was halting a plan to clearcut more than 4,600 acres of native forests, log across an additional 9,000 acres and bulldoze up to 56 miles of road on lands just outside Yellowstone National Park in the Custer Gallatin National Forest.

In April, the Center for Biological Diversity, WildEarth Guardians, Alliance for the Wild Rockies and Native Ecosystems Council challenged the South Plateau project, saying it would destroy habitat for grizzly bears, lynx, pine martens and wolverines. The logging project would have destroyed the scenery and solitude for hikers using the Continental Divide National Scenic Trail, which crosses the proposed timber-sale area.

“This was another one of the Forest Service’s ‘leap first, look later’ projects where the agency asks for a blank check to figure out later where they’ll do all the clearcutting and bulldozing,” said Adam Rissien, a rewilding advocate at WildEarth Guardians. “Logging forests under the guise of reducing wildfires is not protecting homes or improving wildlife habitat, it’s just a timber sale. If the Forest Service tries to revive this scheme to clearcut native forests and bulldoze new roads in critical wildlife habitat just outside of Yellowstone, we’ll continue standing against it.”

https://www.counterpunch.org/2021/05/17/forest-service-halts-huge-clearcutting-plan-next-to-yellowstone-national-park-that-threatened-grizzlies-lynx-2/

[2naSalit]

1. A lot of the cutting...

In the Hebgen Basin and up the divide is poorly done, even the FS management. They needs to just get out of the woods up there and let the wildlife have a place to get away from all the tourists crawling around out there. It's a pretty crowded place anymore and there's only so much area of wild quality left. I'm glad there will be reassessment.