Lake Tahoe logging plan ignites a court battle

Should the scorched forests around Lake Tahoe be logged and replanted, or should they be allowed to regenerate at nature's pace? That's the issue at the heart of a lawsuit filed recently in U.S. District Court in Sacramento by the environmental group Earth Island Institute and others against the U.S Forest Service.

In 2007, a wildfire destroyed 250 homes on the south shore of the cobalt-blue lake, a major tourist attraction on the California-Nevada border.

Chad Hanson, executive director of the Institute's John Muir Project, is among a growing number of scientists who argue that burned forests are ecologically significant and were a much more prevalent part of a healthy Western landscape before full-scale wildfire fighting took root in the 20th century.

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Article courtesy of The Los Angeles Times-Greenspace by Scott Sonner