Lay of the Land

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Updates

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.)