By Department of Fish and Wildlife, SALEM, Ore. — The technical committee advising Columbia River fishery managers has released its forecast for the 2010 spring Chinook run. If the fish show up as projected, the forecast of 470,000 spring chinook would be the largest return to the Columbia since 1938.  […]

Forest Policy Briefs by Rex Storm, Forest Policy Manger Associated Oregon Loggers Forest Service Threatens Contempt of Congress: Oregon’s US Forest Service says it cannot complete a land exchange required by a federal Wilderness law passed in April.  The law requires that by October 2010 the USFS complete an exchange […]

By American Farm Bureau Federation, WASHINGTON, D.C., December 8, 2009 – Lower courts failed to adequately consider the mountains of evidence that prove biotech alfalfa is safe, and thus those courts abandoned a well-established legal principle when they banned the planting of the crop. That is just one of the […]

By Oregon Department of Forestry This fall, local crews will go to work reducing the wildfire hazard on more than 200 acres of forest in Josephine County, thanks to a federal Recovery Act grant received by the Oregon Department of Forestry (ODF). Grayback Forestry of Merlin has been awarded a […]

Water for Life Files Lawsuit Challenging Secret Water Right Negotiations By Helen Moore, Water for Life, (Salem, OR)  – Water for Life and a half-dozen individual irrigators have filed suit against the Oregon Water Resources Department and its Director for denying public access to the Tribal water rights negotiations surrounding […]

From Congressman Greg Walden and Congressman Kurt Schrader WASHINGTON D.C. — A bipartisan group of lawmakers from Oregon, Washington, and South Dakota today introduced legislation to give federal forest managers and scientists the tools they need to do necessary work on choked and beetle-infested forests to avoid catastrophic wildfire and […]

By Natural Resource Report; After five years of waiting, the town of Reedsport will be soon be building their first wave energy bouy with ten more in the works.   The project will cost up to $4 million and help employ 30 workers by 2010.  A single bouy can generate enough […]

By Purdue University WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. – A Smoky Mountain forest’s woodland herb population has shown that climate may play a role in how forest understories recover from logging, according to Purdue University research.  Despite heavy logging in portions of the forest nearly 80 years ago, the distribution of trillium […]

AFRC News, American Forest Research Council In a brief filed on October 30, attorneys representing defendant-intervenor Silver Creek Timber Company asked the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals not to pay the exorbitant attorneys fees demanded by EarthJustice under the Equal Access to Justice Act (EAJA) for its work in defense […]

Farmland Restoration By Stewart Truelsen, American Farm Bureau Federation Who hasn’t driven by a suburban shopping mall with empty stores or through a big city with abandoned warehouses, boarded-up factories and vacant office space? Lately, a lot of foreclosed homes and half-finished condo developments also have been dumped on the […]