
The U.S. Forest Service is preparing to sell off nearly 6,000 acres of federal land near the California coast in an effort to reduce its reliance on foreign timber and make way for a $8 billion, four-year national forest plan.
The sale, announced Thursday by U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, is the latest in a series of moves the U.P.S., the agency responsible for managing the country’s forests, has made to help stave off a wildfire that’s consumed more than 8 million acres of the country.
It’s the latest effort by the UP.
A. to shore up its forest-management credentials after a year of being blamed for damaging forest ecosystems.
The UP-backed U.C. Davis Conservancy last year filed for bankruptcy protection, while a group of U. S. states sued the agency over its lack of transparency and its failure to follow the law.
U.A.’s plans for selling the forest, a portion of which is located along the California Coast, comes as the agency continues to deal with a massive wildfire that has devastated parts of the state.
The U. P.A., which operates federal lands in Arizona, Nevada and Utah, has faced criticism from the US. government for not doing enough to protect the forests from wildfires and has struggled to make up for lost revenue due to higher than expected costs associated with wildfire suppression efforts.
It has also drawn criticism from environmental groups, who say the federal agency should have invested more in the region.
Read moreIn 2016, the U P.S.’s Forest Service purchased about 4,000 miles of federal lands and more than 4 million acres.
The federal government sold the remainder to private companies in 2017 and 2018.
The agency will use the money to buy up additional land in the coming years, the announcement said.
The sale will occur after a period of five years.
The Forest Service will also purchase the remaining 4.4 million acres in the Northern Rockies region that is located in southern California.
That area, located near the border with Washington state, has seen its forests burned in the past two years.
In addition to the Northern Mountains, the Forest Service has purchased land in southern Oregon, Montana, Washington and Idaho.
The Northern Rockies is one of the world’s most heavily forested regions, and fires have ravaged much of the region, including the Upper Pines and the Rocky Mountains.
The Forest Service estimates that 1.2 million acres were burned in 2016 and that 1,600 structures were damaged or destroyed in the fires.