Forests

Region 4 of the Forest Service has renewed grazing permits for hundreds of allotments without conducting any environmental analysis despite harm from grazing to many special resources. 

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Complaint

This case challenges the Forest Service's authorization of grazing on the Antelope Cattle and Horse allotment of Oregon's Fremont-Winema National Forests thereby violating the National Environmental Policy Act (“NEPA”) and the National Forest Management Act (“NFMA”). 

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Complaint

Opening Brief for Summary Judgement

This case challenged BLM's proposal to clearcut and mulch some 50 square miles of old growth pinyon-juniper forest around the Mt. Wilson area of central Nevada. 

BLM claimed that the logging was needed to reduce wildfire risks in the "urban/wildland interface," even though there is no urban area in this remote part of Nevada -- and even though its plans would actually increase fire risks by cutting down live trees and leaving their shredded remains on the ground.

We won an injunction in 2004 preventing the Clearwater National Forest from proceeding with two adjoining timber sales in the Lolo Creek watershed of central Idaho, to protect habitat of imperilled fish -- including salmon, steelhead, and bull trout. 

Even though the Forest Service developed the two sales -- called "White/White" and "Brick/Trout" -- at the same time and they would affect the same watershed, it refused to analyze their cumulative impacts.  After we won the injunction, the agency agreed to withdraw the sales. 

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Lolo injunction

Representing a broad coalition of national, state and local conservation groups, we brought this case in 1997 to stop Forest Service plans to log old growth forests in the Clearwater region of central Idaho -- including the headwaters of the Lochsa and North Fork Clearwater rivers.   The case focused on how logging and logging roads greatly increase landslide risks in the fragile soils of the area; and on the Forest service's over-logging of old growth habitat. 

Mountain caribou are found in the US only in the Selkirk Mountains of northern Idaho and Washington, and are among the most critically endangered mammals in the lower 48 states.  The caribou feed on lichen in old growth forests to survive the winter, and are easily startled by motorized vehicles -- which displace them from their winter refugia, reducing their survival and reproductive success.

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Court Findings and Conclusions

Map of Areas closed for Caribou