A historically large vegetation removal project in Los Padres National Forest was downsized last month, but environmental organizations are still sounding the alarm about the U.S. Forest Service’s plans.
When it was first announced in 2022, the Wildfire Risk Reduction Project (formerly the Ecological Restoration Project) outlined vegetation removal and tree thinning across 235,000 acres of the forest.
In April, the Forest Service released the draft environmental analysis for the project, having reduced it by more than 140,000 acres, down to 90,796, and giving it a new name to boot…