BELLEMONT — The latest setback in Arizona’s lumbering forest restoration campaign has spurred some environmental advocates to press for greater use of fire to burn off trees that loggers aren’t cutting.
Citing financial risk to the industry and the government, federal officials in September called off the second-phase contract bidding for the Four Forest Restoration Initiative, a forest-thinning program that spans 2.4 million acres of national forests in Arizona, an area that makes up the world’s largest expanse of ponderosa pines...