"ANCHORAGE -- U.S. Forest Service researchers have confirmed what has long been suspected about a valuable tree in Alaska's Panhandle: Climate warming is killing off yellow cedar."

"DENVER — A road into the piney woods can be fraught with consequences. That was the premise, more than a decade ago, behind a Clinton administration rule that restricted road building on millions of acres of national forests in the West. The so-called roadless rule, fought over in court from the start, was validated last year by a federal appeals panel, setting off a wave of euphoria among supporters and consternation among critics. But there is a big wrinkle here in Colorado, which was one of only two states — Idaho was the other — that at the urging of the Bush administration developed their own rules about roads in the wild."

"Now the national planning rule that governs individual national forest plans is about to change, for the first time since the Reagan era. Scientists and environmentalists say many of the changes are improvements, but they object to a key change in the way the plan would protect wildlife."

"The Obama administration [Thursday] proposed a new forest planning rule that will guide the management of 155 forests, 20 grasslands and one prairie in the National Forest System."

"While the National Assn. of Music Merchants and some guitar makers seek reform of the federal Lacey Act that protects certain exotic woods, others benefit from it."

A new study suggests that Sudden Aspen Decline, which is killing many trees in the Rocky Mountains, is caused by dehydration and drought.