Fed. Judge Blocks 2 Salvage Timber Sales In Southern Oregon - AP

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federal judge has blocked timber-salvage sales on federal land burned by the Timbered Rock fire in Southern Oregon. Judge Ann Aiken issued the permanent injunction Nov. 8 for the Flaming Rock and Smoke Gobbler timber sales, concluding that the U.S. Bureau of Land Management's decision to salvage the timber was arbitrary and capricious.

The sale plans called for logging 17 million board feet of timber from 12,000 acres of the BLM's Medford District land burned by the 27,000-acre fire in 2002.

Both sales are in late-successional reserves, which are required under the 1994 Northwest Forest Plan to be managed to protect and enhance old-growth-forest ecosystems.

Plaintiffs said in May that the salvage plans violated the law's ability to protect old-growth forests designated as fish and wildlife habitat. "This is really the first time we've had the court rule whether or not federal agencies can go in and log late successional reserves," said George Sexton, conservation director of the Klamath-Siskiyou Wildlands Center in Ashland. "We think this is setting an important precedent."

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