51.   They fear this will require new roads that could harm streams and wildlife and pave the way for broader timber sales.

52.   They passed a rider designed to boost salvage logging of dead and dying trees and certain old-growth timber sales, while exempting them from environmental laws.

53.   Third, timber sale managers showed an apparent bias toward cutting more than was planned.

54.   Those mills have been closed under pressure from environmentalists, leading to steep reductions in timber sales from the Tongass last year.

55.   Timber mills are using shorter-term contracts for timber sales.

56.   Timber sales reduce the wooded acreage of its national forests.

57.   Today, opponents contest most timber sales and mining and grazing face strong pressures to reduce harm to creeks and rivers.

58.   U.S. District Judge Michael Hogan has ruled that the administration cannot withhold once-auctioned timber sales that were canceled after fisheries and wildlife biologists raised objections.

59.   Using the National Environmental Protection Act, the Guardians have successfully blocked timber sales and thinning across the Southwest.

60.   What the country needs is not an acrimonious debate over timber sales but a solid strategy for preventing fires.