President Trump and the Flathead National Forest issued orders over the Holidays that will greatly increase the logging of public lands in the New Year!
As the sun sets on 2018, don't think for a moment that the government is shut down!
On December 21, Winter Solstice, Trump issued an Executive Order directing increased logging on Forest Service and Bureau of Land Management lands under the guise of controlling wildfires - even though hundreds of experts have warned logging will make matters worse. The EO instructs the agencies to use existing shortcuts in environmental reviews and to create new shortcuts. You can read or download the EO here or the warning letter from 200 scientists here.
Two days after Christmas, the Flathead National Forest published its Final Record of Decision for its revised Forest Plan. In the same Federal Register notice, the Forest Supervisors of the other Forests in the Northern Continental Divide Grizzly Bear Ecosystem issued Amendments to their Forest Plans. The Flathead Plan and other Plan Amendments all remove or greatly relax management standards that were in prior plans to protect the threatend grizzly bear and its habitats from road building and logging.
We wish we had better news to share, but we wanted to let you know that we aren't asleep at the switch even though the government may be pretending to be!
With you by our side we intend to meet these challenges head-on in 2019! Your continuted support of our work is greatly appreciated!
January 7 update: Click here to read a Hungry Horse New Article chastising the Flathead for not making the release of its revised Forest Plan known publicly. The article also notes that the current Forest Plan's road closure and decommissioning program for grizzly bear security, Amendment 19, had also restored water quality in Big Creek and gotten it removed from the list of "impaired" watersheds - but that Amendment 19 is abandoned in the revised Forest Plan!


Swan View Coalition • 3165 Foothill Road Kalispell, MT 59901 • 406-755-1379 • .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)