Protecting the environment by providing legal services for forest cases of statewide significance

January 30, 2010 -- A proposal to cut more timber on the Clatsop and Tillamook state forests has divided North Coast residents.

• Posted by tkaps
• Published: Jan 30, 2010

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January 15, 2010 -- Oregon doesn't do enough to protect its coastal waterways from the harmful effects of logging, and that could end up costing the state millions in withheld federal dollars.

• Posted by tkaps
• Published: Jan 15, 2010

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January 7, 2010 -- The company hoping to develop a self-contained community on property it owns in the Teanaway has scheduled two open houses aimed at answering concerns about the plan.

• Posted by tkaps
• Published: Jan 07, 2010

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December 27, 2009 -- Conservation groups are now the forest industry's biggest allies, as institutional investors buy millions of acres of forestland nationwide. From Maine to Montana, they're giving rise to a new model of private ownership, called community forests, hoping to save them from homes and subdivisions. In Oregon and Washington, some conservation groups are looking to purchase forests for the first time.

• Posted by tkaps
• Published: Dec 27, 2009

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December 26, 2009 -- Today, timber investment management organizations and real estate investment trusts represent the largest private landowners in Oregon and across the country.

• Posted by tkaps
• Published: Dec 26, 2009

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December 8, 2009 -- One of the things washed away in a 1983 landslide-caused flood was the rationale for maintaining state ownership of 8,400 acres at Lake Whatcom. Twenty-six years after the disaster, it's happening: Under a land transfer agreement between Whatcom County and the state Department of Natural Resources, the land becomes what may be the state's largest county park.

• Posted by tkaps
• Published: Dec 08, 2009

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December 8, 2009 -- The contents of binders that went missing from the Kittitas County’s Community Development Services office and were later recovered during the course of a police investigation are now available for review online, the Kittitas County Board of Commissioners has announced.

• Posted by tkaps
• Published: Dec 08, 2009

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November 14, 2009 -- A former Kittitas County employee who returned public documents to a company planning development in the Teanaway should have known he wasn't allowed to release them, according to an Ellensburg Police Department investigation.

• Posted by tkaps
• Published: Nov 14, 2009

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November 10, 2009 -- An investigation into missing binders has put a temporary halt on American Forest Land Co.'s development plans, as officials sort out the details of what happened.

• Posted by tkaps
• Published: Nov 10, 2009

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November 5, 2009 -- An Ellensburg Police Department investigation into the disappearance of public documents has prompted the Kittitas County Board of Commissioners to temporarily suspend the Teanaway sub-area planning process.

• Posted by tkaps
• Published: Nov 05, 2009

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October 29, 2009 -- More than 100 people attended an October 28 meeting on the Teanaway subarea plan. American Forest Land Co. owns 46,851 of the 56,000 acres that are tentatively included in the subarea and is seeking to develop part of that. The company’s move to alter the use of its land has been controversial, drawing increasingly vocal criticism from local property owners, recreational users and conservation groups.

• Posted by tkaps
• Published: Oct 29, 2009

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October 26, 2009 -- Forest certification program must have legitimacy.

• Posted by tkaps
• Published: Oct 26, 2009

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October 23, 2009 -- Late in 2007, storm-driven rains in outhwestern Washington sent floodwater, mud, and tons of logging debris crashing into homes and farmland downstream of the Chehalis River. Numerous landslides destroyed wide swaths of mountain habitat, caused hundreds of millions of dollars in property damage, and downed an estimated 140,000 truckloads of timber — much of it on land owned by the Weyerhaeuser Company, the state's largest private timberland owner.

• Posted by tkaps
• Published: Oct 23, 2009

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October 3, 2009 -- American Forest Land Company’s plan to develop timberland the company has in the Teanaway is facing strong opposition from those in the community who say the company rolled the dice on what turned out to be a bad investment and now wants to change the rules for how the land can be used.

• Posted by tkaps
• Published: Oct 03, 2009

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September 12, 2009 -- For more than a decade, the nonprofit Forest Stewardship Council generally has been viewed as the premier judge of whether a wood or paper product should be labeled as environmentally friendly. But to the dismay of major environmental groups, that label, known as F.S.C., is facing a stiff challenge from a rival certification system supported by the paper and timber industry. At stake is the trust of consumers in the ever-expanding market for “green” products.

• Posted by tkaps
• Published: Sep 12, 2009

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