Pandemic aid to farmers at $7 billion as USDA pro-rates timber payments
The USDA will pro-rate its final round of pandemic payments to timber harvesters and haulers to stay within the $200 million limit for the aid program, officials said on Thursday. Meanwhile, USDA data showed disbursements of $6.98 billion in coronavirus relief to farmers and ranchers this year.
Logging sabotage incident snags BLM nominee
Republican senators from the West say Tracy Stone-Manning is disqualified from serving as director of the Bureau of Land Management because of her involvement in a logging sabotage episode in 1989. Idaho Sen. James Risch charged on Wednesday that Stone-Manning had "colluded with eco-terrorists."
A novel approach to deforestation may also offer a pandemic safety net
A novel conservation group in western Borneo offers healthcare services and training in sustainable farming to curb illegal logging. In the process, the group may have come up with a blueprint to stop diseases from making the deadly leap between wildlife and people, Brian Barth writes in FERN's latest story produced with Popular Science. (No paywall)