The new national planning rule governing individual national forest plans include changes in how wildlife would be protected. Some scientists and environmental advocates say the plan’s change, scheduled to go into effect in early March, would be bad for wildlife.
The 1982 rule required the Forest Service to manage fish and wildlife habitat so that healthy populations of animals are "well-distributed" throughout each forest.
The new plan drops that language. Instead, it requires forest managers to maintain habitats. It leaves it up to the official in charge of a region’s forests to decide whether any individual species needs extra protection to ensure that it will continue to exist over the long term with "sufficient distribution.""
http://www.bellinghamherald.com/2012/02/02/2377463/new-forest-management-plan-weakens.html
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Filed under: Puget Sound | Tagged: Puget Sound |
