1/7/2001 911

NEW MEXICO OLD GROWTH TIMBER SALE APPEALED

The Center for Biological Diversity on 12-19-00 filed its second appeal against the Corner Mountain fire salvage sale on the Gila National Forest. The sale would clearcut 2 million board feet of ponderosa pine and Douglas-fir on 340 acres, including 7,000 trees over 16 inches and 2,500 trees over 24 inches.

Corner Mountain needlessly threatens the Gila’s celebrated prescribed burn program - the most aggressive in the country - by logging an area which burned two years ago when the Forest Service lost control of a prescribed natural fire. Prescribed burns are designed to restore natural forest processes by slowly reintroducing fire into forested areas. Salvage logging in prescribed burn areas undermines these restoration goals by impeding forest recovery, damaging fragile soils, harming wildlife, and promoting arson.

The Center has actively fought Corner Mountain since its inception two years ago. Aggressive Center opposition in 1999 caused the Forest Service to greatly scale back its original plan to salvage log nearly 5 million board feet on 1,000 acres. In June 2000, the Center successfully appealed the sale due to the Forest Service’s failure to analyze logging’s effects on wildlife, including elk, deer, Mexican vole, and hairy woodpecker. The Center will litigate against the Corner Mountain salvage sale if this second appeal is denied.