logging

Activists and outdoor recreation businesses want Indiana to set aside 10 percent of state forests for old growth trees. The Indiana Department of Natural Resources says the state forests are one of the few places where it can create important wildlife habitat

While activists say the state cuts down too many trees in state forests, the Indiana Department of Natural Resources says its foresters are following good management practices.

The idea came from a failed House motion by Rep. Matt Pierce (D-Bloomington) that would have set up a task force to look at practices like logging and make recommendations to the Indiana Department of Natural Resources.

The Indiana Court of Appeals has declined to rehear a couple's lawsuit seeking to stop a neighbor's logging of his private property along Lake Monroe.

The groups Friends of Salamonie Forest and the Indiana Forest Alliance are seeking to have two state forests designated state parks.

As a dispute between neighbors over logging on private property near Lake Monroe makes its way through the court system, some are alarmed by how the action is changing the lakefront's landscape.

House Democrats tried to pass two amendments this week that could have changed the way Indiana manages its forests.

The plan calls for logging to concentrate on removing stagnated and dying pine trees to create better growing conditions for healthy trees, including black walnut, cherry, oaks, hickory, poplar and maple.

Neighbors sued to block the logging, saying the logging equipment would damage a private roadway. Officials also have raised concerns about possible impact to Bloomington's water supply.

Despite a number of last ditch efforts, language that would have stripped local governments from having regulatory authority on natural resource extraction did not make it to the floor.