Logging

Ashland is the unexpected home of the country’s only full-service forensic laboratory devoted to tracking illegally transported animals and plants. Now the lab is employing a new strategy to get forensic tools to U.S. ports to stop the illegal timber trade.

The Bureau of Land Management has agreed to reverse a rule put in place during the Donald Trump presidency that allowed the agency to log large areas of forests after a wildfire without first doing an environmental review.

The denial affirms a lower court decision saying the "greatest permanent value" of Oregon forests is more than just timber revenue.

For more than two decades, a federal rule prohibited cutting trees larger than 21 inches in diameter on millions of forested acres in Oregon and Washington. That changed in the final days of the Trump administration.

The court determined that managing state forestland for the "greatest permanent value" doesn't mean maximizing timber revenue.

Large ponderosa pines have been marked for cutting west of Bend as part of a fire preparedness project, but conservation group Oregon Wild says they should be spared.

Sides are debating whether the “greatest permanent value” of Oregon state forestlands lies exclusively in their ability to generate revenue.

The federal agency has withdrawn a plan to log so-called danger trees along more than 400 miles of roads in the forest after legal challenges.

The Oregon Department of Forestry will open 4,000 acres of public lands on New Year’s Day.

The ruling Friday by U.S. District Judge Ann Aiken comes after Cascadia Wildlands and Oregon Wild sued to stop the logging near Breitenbush Hot Springs and Detroit Lake.