Suit To Stop Logging of Sequoias

The Sierra Club and four other environmental groups called the U.S. Forest Service's decision to include widespread logging in its plan for managing the 327,769-acre monument a scientifically suspect strategy meant to satisfy timber interests under the guise of wildfire prevention.

Environmentalists in San Francisco sued the federal government over its plans to log in central California's Giant Sequoia National Monument where two-thirds of the world's largest trees grow. The lawsuit seeks to block the plan and have it vacated. The Forest Service said the plan allows for "thinning" of some trees in Sequoia, is motivated by fire prevention goals and does not permit commercial logging. The giant sequoia commonly grows to 30 feet in diameter, and only trees with diameters of up to 30 inches can be cut under the present rules. Timber companies will pay the government for the right to remove some of the larger trees that fall within the 30-inch limit, which will provide money for removing brush and smaller trees that could pose a fire danger.