Motion filed to defend forest plan
By Jane Braxton Little -- Bee Correspondent - (Published April 25, 2003)
Several environmental groups will intervene in a lawsuit against a U.S. Forest Service management plan for 11.5 million acres of national forest land in the Sierra Nevada.
The Sierra Club, Wilderness Society and Sierra Nevada Forest Protection Campaign fear the federal government won't defend its own management proposal against the lawsuit, filed last month by the Quincy Library Group and Plumas County, seeking to set aside the 2001 Sierra Nevada Framework.
The groups filed a motion Tuesday in U.S. District Court to defend the Forest Service proposal to reduce the danger of wildfire while protecting wildlife in national forests on the Nevada border.
The 15-page motion cites other suits the government failed to defend against. The results amount to "an open invitation for timber, mining and ranching interests to sue," said Craig Thomas, director of the Sierra Nevada Forest Protection Campaign.