10/25/2000 889

FOREST SERVICE AGREES TO LOGGING BAN IN AZ TIMBER SALE

The Center for Biological Diversity and Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility have negotiated a partial settlement with the U.S. Forest Service prohibiting logging within a 12 square mile area pending the resolution over a lawsuit over the Baca Timber Sale. The settlement allows thinning of trees less than six inches in diameter on 306 acres of fire prone forest next to a housing development.

The lawsuit was filed against the Apache-Sitgreaves National Forest on 5-8-00 to halt the cutting of 31 million board feet of ponderosa pine. This is one of the largest timber sales offered by the Forest Service in the Southwest in the last decade. Long-term research indicates that the northern goshawk population on the forest is in decline- population viability models predict localized extinction in 29 years, assuming a closed population. Of the 44 remaining goshawk territories on the Sitgreaves, five are contained within the Baca timber sale. Four would be logged.

The case is being argued Jay Tutchton of Earthjustice(Denver) and Cliff Levenson (Phoenix).