An expedited commercial logging project proposed by the Forest Service could reshape more than 4,000 acres of the national forest on the doorstep of Yellowstone National Park in Montana.
Some local residents say the project, proposed by the Forest Service in April, would mar the landscape in the remote mountains of the Custer Gallatin National Forest. The Bear Palmer project envisions blazing more than 7 miles of new roads and either clear-cutting trees or thinning more than 1,600 acres of forested land.
The Forest Service says the project will promote a healthy forest and that it’s needed to protect a tiny community accessible by a single gravel road from growing wildfire risks. The agency is blazing ahead under an emergency approval process that expedites federal environmental review when there is a high threat to human safety.
But some residents say that the real reason for the logging project is political pressure from Washington to increase timber production on public lands, and they warn that logging is a threat to the greater Yellowstone ecosystem.
