“Do we want small groups of local people sitting down in a room and making decisions that affect our public lands for a long time and leaving everybody else out?” asked George Nikas, director of Missoula-based Wilderness Watch and a member of the coalition. “What does that mean for all the other forests around Montana?”

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You knew it was coming….

The exemption was to be temporary but is still being implemented by the Forest Service, according to the lawsuit. The lawsuit seeks to set aside the exemption for the Tongass and all Forest Service decisions that are not consistent with the 2001 rule

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Wow! It looks like they are not happy with the mandated logging portion of it, and the precedent it may set for other national forests. These are the biggest concerns of mine, along with the removal of wilderness study areas. This whole thing kind of stinks of this highly localized industry giveaway, almost like Tester and company opened up a pad of paper and asked the logging industry to write down exactly what theywanted….

“well, you see here John Tester, we need to log 7,000 acres a year, and that needs to be mandated”

lol!

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Sherman urged Tester, a first-term Democrat, to “alter or remove highly site-specific requirements” for logging and other forest-thinning projects that are “likely unachievable and perhaps unsustainable.”

There are a few sticking points on this for me. The first being the removal of huge chunks of wilderness study areas. The second being the expansion of ORV use in some of these wildlands, and the third being the mandated logging quota, which is incredibly unrealistic.

Critics also dislike the provisions that would release wildness study areas that were protected under a law sponsored by the late Sen. Lee Metcalf (D-Mont.) and BLM-administered areas that have been protected more than 30 years. They say the wilderness designated is in small and disconnected areas, not well suited to wildlife.

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