Owl case judge pares back tree-cutting ban
Parties in lawsuit agreed on easing restrictions
SANTA FE — An agreement between federal agencies and an environmental group to pare back a court-imposed ban on tree-cutting, wood-gathering and prescribed burns in New Mexico’s national forests has been approved by a federal judge.
Senior U.S. District Judge Raner Collins of Arizona OK’d the stipulated agreement in an order filed Tuesday. The previous day, Santa Fe-based WildEarth Guardians, the U.S. Forest Service and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service had filed a joint request to reduce the impact of an injunction imposed by the judge in litigation over the threatened
Mexican spotted owl.
Court documents previously had indicated Collins would hear oral arguments on the request next month. But the judge wasted no time on modifying his injunction.
In September, Collins halted tree-cutting in the five national forests in New Mexico and one in Arizona until federal agencies can understand better how to monitor the population of the owl. The judge said the agencies had shirked their responsibility to count the Mexican spotted owl as part of a recovery plan.
After an uproar resulted when the Forest Service said the injunction banned traditional firewood-gathering crucial to heating homes in parts of New Mexico, the judge approved a request to allow that activity. But other timber projects had remained sidelined.
The New Mexico Forest Industries Association
said the ban has been affecting 400 jobs in fields ranging from those who do forest and watershed restoration work to artisans who use forest wood to make furniture and flooring.
The modified order creates exemptions to allow tree-cutting projects entirely outside Mexican spotted owl habitat or designated owl “activity centers”; prescribed burns or thinning of forest fuels to prevent wildfires, but without taking out trees greater than 9 inches in diameter in owl activity centers; commercial firewood-gathering projects outside spotted owl habitat; personal Christmas tree-cutting and the harvesting in the Carson National Forest of this year’s U.S. Capitol Christmas tree; and the cutting of trees for “personal use products,” such as vigas and latillas, by Native American tribes for ceremonial purposes or to remove hazard trees threatening life or property.