National Forests

The U.S. Forest Service plans to grant free access to nearly all national forest lands, scaling back unpopular recreation fees that have raised the ire of hikers but also sent millions of dollars to Southern California's heavily used forests. The agency proposes eliminating fees for three-quarters of the forest areas where they are now imposed, including 19 in Southern California. The charges in the Southland take the form of the regional Adventure Pass, which costs $5 a day or $30 annually.

Active U.S. servicemen and women and their families will receive a new perk come Saturday: free passes to more than 2,000 public lands nationwide. The Department of the Interior and the Joining Forces initiative announced Tuesday that passes would be available starting on  Armed Forces Day on Saturday. "Just 1% of Americans are fighting our wars, but we need 100% to support our troops and their families," Secretary of Interior Ken Salazar said in a news conference Monday.

Does a hiker go to the bathroom in the woods? It might matter, under a recent federal court ruling. The U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled correctly last month that parking fees were being wrongly levied in many areas of America's national forests. A 2004 law is quite specific that it is impermissible to charge fees for parking or for "general use" of the forests. But while the court's ruling was perfectly in line with the law, the real problem is with the law itself.

From the start, there were indications that the U.S. Forest Service didn't respond aggressively enough during the 2009 Station fire in the Angeles National Forest. Now there are signs that it moved too aggressively to plant a million seedlings in an attempt at post-fire reforestation. As Times staff writer Louis Sahagun reports, only about a fourth of the pine and fir seedlings have survived so far, less than a third of the hoped-for number. Dry conditions this year would have made things difficult in any event, but many mistakes were surprisingly avoidable: planting in areas that experts now agree are too steep and rocky for tree survival; planting species that either aren't native to the area or weren't growing in those specific areas before; planting at too low an elevation; and planting more trees than typically grow in these areas.

Federal supervisors would have to run the country's national forests to maintain ecological health and species diversity under a proposed Obama administration rule that also requires them to prepare environmental reviews when they update forest management plans. The 94-page document is the latest version of a forest planning rule that has gone through a decade of revision and litigation as changing administrations left their stamps on it. It would shape the future of the 193-million-acre national forest system, including more than 20 million acres in California.

The Obama administration waded into a nearly decadelong debate over roadless areas in national forests Thursday, announcing what amounts to a timeout from most new logging and development in pristine areas across the West. Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack issued the yearlong order, which shifts decisions about development in roadless areas away from U.S. Forest Service officials and requires that he approve all new projects.

A federal appeals court on Wednesday reinstated national protections for some of the country's wildest forest lands, the latest twist in a nearly decadelong legal battle. The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals found that the Bush administration had skirted environmental laws when it effectively repealed a 2001 rule that barred road building and timber cutting on nearly a third of America's national forest land.

Four U.S. national forests are located in Southern California: - The Los Padres National Forest, covering 1.7-million acres and extending, in two segments, from Ventura County to Carmel. - The Angeles National Forest, sprawling across 641,000 acres along the steep, brushy San Gabriel Mountains from north of Claremont to Castaic Lake.

Alexander Cockburn's grossly inaccurate characterization of President Clinton's recent announcement to protect 40 million acres of roadless areas in America's national forests does a disservice to the majority of Americans who care about our national forests (Commentary, Oct. 21). Logging and livestock grazing are in fact likely to be prohibited under the proposed plan. Alaska's Tongass forest has not been excluded. And the process to put the plan in place is expected to be completed before the end of the Clinton administration.

President Clinton should move promptly, as promised, to staunch the environmental damage that Congress caused last year by continuing to subsidize road building by timber companies in our national forests. Though such roads may indeed offer economic benefit by making it easier to take timber out, they despoil forests and their wildlife habitats.

By all accounts, the 400-pound black bear, now synonymous with Glendale, is very, very smart. Smarter, authorities say, than the average bear. After he discovered Costco meatballs in a resident's refrigerator about a month ago, authorities say, the bear has returned to the same house in the 3800 block of Cedarbend Drive three times seeking the same dinner. He even monitored trash schedules in multiple neighborhoods, nailing down the days when he could nab free food. But on Tuesday, the meatball-lovingbear'sgood fortune ran out. He was felled by multiple tranquilizer darts in a drama that unfolded on morning television, then was carted deep into the Angeles National Forest with what California Department of Fish and Game officials described as a "heck of a hangover.

Like much else in government, U.S. public land policy is a vestige of the past, established in 1910 when America's population was just 92.2 million and a Western state such as Nevada had only 81,000 residents. Today our needs are much different and much greater. The United States can no longer afford to keep tens of millions of acres of "public" land locked up and out of service. Some of these lands have great commercial value; others are environmental treasures. We need policies capable of distinguishing between the two. Few Easterners realize the immense magnitude of the public lands.

Does a hiker go to the bathroom in the woods? It might matter, under a recent federal court ruling. The U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled correctly last month that parking fees were being wrongly levied in many areas of America's national forests. A 2004 law is quite specific that it is impermissible to charge fees for parking or for "general use" of the forests. But while the court's ruling was perfectly in line with the law, the real problem is with the law itself.

The U.S. Forest Service plans to grant free access to nearly all national forest lands, scaling back unpopular recreation fees that have raised the ire of hikers but also sent millions of dollars to Southern California's heavily used forests. The agency proposes eliminating fees for three-quarters of the forest areas where they are now imposed, including 19 in Southern California. The charges in the Southland take the form of the regional Adventure Pass, which costs $5 a day or $30 annually.

A federal appeals court ruled Friday that a controversial blueprint for managing national forests in the Sierra Nevada was flawed because the U.S. Forest Service didn't adequately assess how fish would be affected by increases in logging and road building. The 9th Circuit Court of Appeals decision is the latest step in a legal battle over changes the Bush administration made to guidelines for the 11 national forests that run the length of the range. Amendments to a Clinton-era plan ramped up logging levels in the Sierra, allowed more road construction and weakened restrictions on grazing — all practices that affect water quality and fish habitat.

Collaboration and a greater reliance on science are the keys to the Obama administration's new guidelines in managing about 193 million acres of national forest and juggling the competing interests of industry and conservation groups. Known as the forest planning rule, the guidelines unveiled Thursday by Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack and Forest Service Chief Tom Tidwell aim to protect the environment and reduce the time for approval of development projects. It will replace the old framework, which has been the center of legal battles for years.

"America's Eroding Atolls of Nature" (Nov. 3) grossly misrepresents our club's annual, one-day, off-highway motorcycle Enduro in the San Bernardino National Forest. It incorrectly states that American Honda Motor Co. is the promoter of the Enduro. American Honda has nothing to do with the Enduro, other than providing trash bags that the club distributes to all participants. The Enduro is not a "stampede" but a time and distance event similar to a car rally. The article ignores all that goes into managing the activity so that what impacts occur only occur on designated and managed off-highway routes, and that the course and camping area are left spotlessly clean.

During my long career with the U.S. Forest Service, people frequently expressed their concerns about the management of public lands to me when I'd run into them at the grocery store or on a hiking trail. One of the main issues they brought up had to do with the relationship between timber harvests and county budgets. Here's the dilemma. Counties traditionally rely on property taxes to fund basic services and education. But local governments cannot tax national forest land, and many Western states have a high percentage of their land in federal ownership.

"The Hunger Games" movie trailer released Monday to hungry fans presents a leafy, green, post-apocalpytic nation in which children in a dystopian society are commanded to fight to the death. The chilling fantasy is set in the ruins of the United States in a country called Panem that looks a lot like ... North Carolina. Indeed, "Games," which opens March 23, 2012, and is based on the 2008 book by Suzanne Collins, was filmed over the summer in Asheville, Barnardsville, Black Mountain, Cedar Mountain, Charlotte, Concord, Hildebran and Shelby, N.C., the Charlotte Observer reports.