In The News
US Forest Service Failing to Protect Old Growth Trees From Logging, Critics Say
The Guardian
“The largest logging projects I’ve ever seen are targeting the last, best remaining old growth trees left in the country,” said Chad Hanson, a forest ecologist and co-founder of the John Muir Project. “The situation is rampant as far as I can tell and it risks squandering a once-in-a-generation opportunity to protect these incredible forests.”
Read MoreWhat Does the Supreme Court’s Chevron Decision Mean For a Potential Second Trump Term?
By Clark Mindock
Landmark
“The truth is the Chevron decision has been a mixed bag for the environment because deference to agency interpretations of environmental laws is only helpful if the agencies are trying to protect the environment,” said Chad Hanson, a forest ecologist with the Earth Island Institute’s John Muir Project.
Read MoreAs Wildfires Rage in Oregon, Tree-Sitters Continue Protests to Protect Old Growth Trees
By Vanessa Arredondo
Reckon
“These unchecked logging practices would lead to increased wildfire risk while also weakening environmental safeguards … that are crucial to maintaining these ecosystems and ensuring that these activities don’t harm endangered species or degrade the environment,” said Jennifer Mamola, the advocacy and policy director, for the John Muir Project.
Read MoreCalifornia Wildfires Have Already Burned 90,000 Acres
By Grace Toohey
Los Angeles Times
California’s summer started with intense wildfire activity, stretching firefighting resources, forcing evacuations, and scorching homes, businesses, and hillsides.
Read MoreSuppressing Wildfires is Harming California’s Giant Sequoia Trees
By Adam Popescu
NewScientist: Life
Recent years have seen some of the largest wildfires in California’s history, and one of the best approaches to limiting their damage is controlled burns that reduce natural fuel for the fires. But now, it seems these burns are destroying the state’s iconic sequoia trees.
Read MoreForest Service Sued for Approving Plumas Forest Logging Project
By Samantha Hawkins
Bloomberg Law
The US Forest Service approved a logging project in the Plumas National Forest without adequately assessing its environmental effects, environmental groups said in a lawsuit filed Friday in California federal court. The $650 million Central/West Slope Project plans to log and burn 217,721 acres of mature and old-growth habitat in Plumas National Forest, located in the northern Sierra Nevadas, John Muir Project of Earth Island Institute and other groups said in the lawsuit.
Read MoreTeam of Researchers Find Wildfire is Future to Saving California’s Giant Sequoias
By Hunter Sowards
CBS13 News
Wildfires were once seen as the downfall of the treasured giant sequoia trees in California’s Sierra Nevada mountains, but a team of researchers with the John Muir Project released a recent study outlining how they could be our best shot at saving them.
Read MoreConservation Groups Seek to Block Logging Projects in Giant Sequoia National Monument
By Carmen Kohlruss
The Magazine of the Sierra Club
Conservation groups argue in a new lawsuit that logging projects threaten the sequoia groves and endangered animals in California’s Giant Sequoia National Monument.
Read MoreNPS Wants to Plant Sequoias; Environmentalists Sue, Say There’s No Need to Butt In
By Andrew J. Campa
Los Angeles Times
High-intensity fires in 2020 and 2021 devastated adult sequoias, especially in Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Parks, a point of agreement among environmentalists and NPS.
Read MoreWhy Environmentalists are Suing the National Park Service to Prevent It From Planting Trees
By Jonathan Park & Janna Van Vranken
CNN
The National Park Service wants to replant sequoia groves in Sequoia and Kings Canyon, but environmentalists argue it’s a huge mistake after wildfires.
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