Publication archives

Some of the last remaining roadless areas in northern Minnesota's Superior National Forest would be logged over the next decade under a proposed state timber-management plan. As many as nine state-owned stands would be cut and a network of roads would be built through larger federal backcountry areas to reach them, according to a coalition of environmental groups opposing the plan.

OVANDO, Mont. - When the Plum Creek Timber Company decided to sell its 88,000 acres in the mountain-ringed Blackfoot Valley near here in 2003, ranchers, conservationists and other locals worried that a crop of new houses would sprout.

The first step to improve waterfowl habitat in the Brainerd area was made this summer when the DNR surveyed 17 lakes in the Lower Dean Lake Watershed.

The U.S. softwood sawmill industry, including Minnesota, has reversed a decline in capacity in the early 1990s and grown over the past decade, according to a study by U.S. Forest Service economists. Employment, however, has declined even as the industry's productivity increased 45 percent in the United States and 50 percent in Canada.

ST. LOUIS -- A network of botanical institutions is launching an unprecendented study of endangered native U.S. plants to determine their potential for recovery -- and in hopes of preventing their disappearance. Those plants range from the Western lily to the Tennessee coneflower, says the Center for Plant Conservation.

HANOVER, N.H. -- The Lyme Timber Co. discovered the profit potential in land conservation almost by accident. For nearly a decade after its founding in 1976, it operated like any other timber management company - buying, logging and selling timberland for wealthy investors.

The Big Cypress National Preserve in Florida is crisscrossed with so many illegal swamp-buggy ruts - more than 23,000 miles of them - that park officials in August began limiting off-road vehicles to 400 miles of trails in order to protect the Florida panther and the preserve.

More than 1,000 people will be searching forest floors in western and northern Wisconsin this month and next for the gnarled root of wild ginseng, desired by Asians for both its soothing and energy-boosting qualities.