Early next month, the Obama administration will finalize important and long overdue rules for the management of 155 national forests covering nearly 200 million acres. The rules will guide individual forest managers as they decide which parts of the forest can safely be opened to logging, mining and recreation, and which parts must be set aside to protect wildlife and the health of the forest.

Shimla: The state Cabinet today gave nod for reopening of 255 timber depots, including 57 dealing only in imported timber, which were closed over the past four years on a need basis. The depots, to be opened after assessing the requirement, will only deal in imported timber (brought from other states or abroad) and not sell the indigenous species.

To make sandalwood cultivation viable for farmers, the ruling BJP Government in Karnataka is proposing to amend the Tree Act.

According to State Forest Minister CH Vijayshankar, the proposed amendment is aimed at allowing farmers to grow sandalwood tree in their farms, own and sell them at the market price.

The greatest threat to the northern spotted owl, an imperiled bird at the center of a decades-old environmental clash in the Pacific Northwest, is no longer the timber industry -- it's another owl.

The federal government says it plans to launch a program to kill or otherwise remove hundreds of barred owls -- originally from the East Coast -- that are overtaking the spotted owl's natural range i

Slowing deforestation and greater awareness of the value of standing trees may come too late to save the world's biggest rainforests, according to a global assessment of tropical forests published Tuesday.

Tropical forests are threatened by pressures to clear land to produce food and biofuels and to plant fast-growing trees for timber, wood fuel and paper.

Awareness was growing in tropical c

Indonesia's President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono inked into law on Thursday a two-year moratorium on new permits to clear primary forests, part of a $1 billion deal with Norway that could spur projects to cut emissions and slow expansion of plantations.

The moratorium ordered a freeze on new permits to log or convert primary forests and peatlands -- worrying palm oil, timber and mining firms in S