Better Living: DuPont has agreed to drop its plans to mine titanium alongside
Georgia's Great Okefenokee Swamp, home to threatened and endangered species
including the red-cockaded woodpecker and the indigo snake. The Sierra Club had
long opposed the 38,000-acre mine, warning that it would irreparably damage the
swamp, most of which was designated a national wildlife refuge in 1936. (See
"Splendid Swamp," January/February 1997.)
Wild Utah: The Bureau of Land Management now says that 5.8 million acres in
southern Utah may qualify for federal wilderness designation. A BLM
survey essentially confirmed the findings of a decade-old "citizens' inventory"
by the Utah Wilderness Coalition, which form the core of the Red Rock Wilderness
Act, H.R. 1500. The coalition, a jump ahead of the feds, recently found an
additional 3 million acres. (See "Paradise Found," November/December 1998.)
Ruts in Road Ban: Dashing hopes for a major slowdown in the race to log virgin
timberlands, the U.S. Forest Service in February imposed an 18-month-long
moratorium on roadbuilding in about 33 million acres of national forest, little
more than half of all remaining roadless areas. The ban exempts Tongass National
Forest in Alaska and old-growth forests in the Pacific Northwest and Northern
California, among others in need of protection. (See "Chains vs. Chainsaws,"
July/August 1998.)
Redwoods Rescue: A deal to save Northern California's embattled Headwaters
Forest, finally clinched in March, was a bittersweet victory. It confers
permanent protection on 10,000 acres of ancient redwood forest, and preserves
another 7,000 acres for 50 years. But environmentalists fear that it fails to
adequately safeguard endangered species, and say the $480 million price tag is
too steep. (See "Redwood Rabbis," November/December 1998.)
