FLAGSTAFF – A group of environmentalists is appealing a plan by the U.S. Forest Service to log an area north of the Grand Canyon.
It’s the second logging plan on the Kaibab National Forest that conservationists have challenged this year. Both sites are within an area where 58,000 acres burned in 2006.
The plan approved in March calls for logging on 9,100 acres and the planting of conifer trees on nearly 10,000 acres in an effort to restore forest conditions.
Conservationists say the plan makes no sense economically or ecologically. They say it would erode soil, damage habitat for the threatened Mexican spotted owl and increase the potential for wildfires.
The Center for Biological Diversity, Sierra Club and WildEarth Guardians signed on to the appeal filed Thursday.