Description:
In 1997 the Coquille Indian Tribe was given 5,400 acres of land that had been public forests managed by the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) in western Oregon. In 1999 the Coquille Tribal Council released their plans to clearcut 328 acres in just their first project. The Tribal Council were required to follow all the same environmental protections that the adjoining BLM land followed. For instance, they couldn't harm endangered Salmon in the watershed. ---------------------------- In December 2000 Judge Rothstein found that clearcuts on 170 federal timber sales in the Pacific Northwest degraded watersheds for salmon, which the Endangered Species Act did not allow. The Coquille Forest clearcuts were stopped before they could get started. --------------- ------------------------ ----------- But the Tribe chose not to thin or selectively log instead of clearcut. They sold 102 acres of trees to Lone Rock Timber, who to cut them down in the spring of 2001. When the judge reviewed these plans they were stopped again. They were simply not allowed to further degrade the watershed by clearcutting. The court ruling was upheld by the 9th circuit court of appeals in April 2001. But then in September 2001, a property rights group used Judge Hogan to strip endangered fish of ESA protections. The 9th circuit court of appeals stayed Judge Hogan's ruling on December 14 and endangered fish were protected again. If anyone took advantage of the brief lifting of protections, they had to stop logging again on December 14. ------- -------- ----------------- ------- Lone Rock Timber had taken advantage of this brief loophole and were even caught ILLEGALLY LOGGING on December 19. They got a stop-cutting order on December 20 to force them to stop a second time. But on December 31, Lone Rock Timber was discovered illegally logging again --clearcutting in unit 5. Because of the holidays, another Temporary Restraining Order from the District Court could not be gotten until January 3rd at 11:45 a.m. Incredibly, Lone Rock Timber even defied this court order and continued logging until 4:00 p.m. A lot of trees can be cut down in just a few hours. Maybe they even finished it off. FOR MORE DETAILS, CLICK ON EACH OF THE THUMBNAIL PHOTOS. or see: http://www.umpqua-watersheds.org/blm/coquille_forest.html

Album Owner:
itsfrancis

Last Modified:
January 04th, 2002 12:18:18 PM

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Itsfrancis's Albums:
* Old Growth on public land. Lemolo Timber Sale
* Timber company clearcuts Coquille Tribal Forest
* Boise-Cascade clearcuts the Umpqua National Forest
* Bush comes to Southern Oregon