South Western Ambulance Service Trust ambulance ATTACKS on paramedics have rocketed with crews threatened with knives and baseball bats. Shocking figures released today by the South Western Ambulance Service Trust reveal there were 1,584 attacks in 2020, a rise of 64 per cent on the previous year. Staff suffered 50 incidents of violence and aggression between Christmas Eve and New Year s Day. This is 85 per cent higher than the same period in 2019. And incidents included a a crew being confronted by a man with a knife on Christmas Day. His car then collided with the ambulance as he tried to leave the scene. Another crew responding to an incident were threatened with a baseball bat by a motorist. A female paramedic was also assaulted while attending an incident.
PORTLAND â The Trump administration is removing a decades-old ban on logging large trees in six national forests across Eastern Oregon and Southeast Washington.
USDA Undersecretary James Hubbard signed off on the decision on Friday, Jan. 15, amending the rule that prohibits cutting down any trees larger than 21 inches in diameter.
The 21-inch harvest rule is part of a broader suite of management standards, known as the Eastside Screens, adopted in 1995 to protect wildlife habitat and water quality on roughly 10 million acres of federal land in the Umatilla, Wallowa-Whitman, Malheur, Ochoco, Deschutes and Fremont-Winema national forests.
Rather than a blanket restriction on logging large trees, the U.S. Forest Service will replace the 21-inch rule with a more flexible guideline that generally calls for protecting old-growth forests, but allows land managers to make exceptions if they meet the agencyâs long-term restoration goals.
USDA, Alabama sign historic agreement to improve forests on public, private lands
By Tammy Freeman Brown January 16, 2021
Participants appear in a virtual signing ceremony for a federal-state pact to help safeguard the health of Alabama s forests, known as a Shared Stewardship agreement. (contributed)
U.S. Department of Agriculture Under Secretary James Hubbard and Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey signed a shared stewardship agreement Jan. 12 to ensure the long-term sustainability of public and private lands in the state.
Shared Stewardship agreements establish a framework for federal and state agencies to collaborate better, focus on accomplishing mutual goals, further common interests and effectively respond to the increasing ecological challenges and natural resource concerns.
Posted January 14th, 2021 for Tennessee Government Thursday, January 14, 2021
03:13pm
NASHVILLE – Tennessee’s forests will benefit from strengthened partnerships between federal and state agencies following today’s virtual signing of a Shared Stewardship agreement. Under Secretary of Agriculture James Hubbard represented USDA and Tennessee’s Department of Agriculture Commissioner Charlie Hatcher, Department of Environment and Conservation Commissioner David Salyers, and Wildlife Resources Agency Director Bobby Wilson all signed on behalf of Governor Bill Lee. The agreement between USDA s Forest Service and Natural Resources Conservation Service and the state agencies establishes a framework to improve collaboration, accomplish mutual goals, further common interests, and effectively respond to the increasing ecological challenges and natural resource concerns.