New Rules Protect U.S. Forest Ecosystems

A new federal rule announced Thursday could limit logging, skiing or hiking in national forests if forest managers believe those activities might permanently harm the ecosystem. The policy change requires that managers overseeing 192 million acres of 155 forests put ecosystem health above all other concerns. The Forest Service previously required that its managers, when developing a forest management plan, give equal weight to ecosystem health and other forest priorities, such as logging and public access. Environmentalists praised the rule while loggers and others worried it would unfairly limit use of national forests."

Thanks to Abhijeet Chavan