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Dear Guardian,
Last week, the Montana District Court served a MAJOR win for mature and old-growth forests and the recovering grizzly bear population in the Cabinet-Yaak Recovery Zone.
On August 17, Judge Donald Molloy sided with our argument and ruled to halt the U.S. Forest Service’s Black Ram Project within the Kootenai National Forest in northwest Montana. The project would have commercially logged nearly 4,000 acres, 45% of which would have been removed through clearcutting. This would have resulted in logging over 500 acres of old-growth and mature forest!
Along with our partners, WildEarth Guardians argued that the Forest Service failed to account for the massive loss of carbon-storing capacity mature and old-growth forests provide, and rejected the agency’s assertion that any loss would be minor and eventually replaced. Judge Molloy stated it clearly:
"Put more simply, logging causes immediate carbon losses, while re-sequestration happens slowly over time, time that the planet may not have."
Importantly, Judge Molloy further stated:
“With all in agreement that climate change as a result of carbon emissions is an increasingly serious national and global problem,… FS has the responsibility to give the public an accurate picture of what impacts a new project may have, no matter how ‘infinitesimal’ they believe they may be.”
The court decision also stops the agency from bulldozing nearly a mile of new, permanent road through old-growth forest, which would have further imperiled the struggling grizzly bear population in Cabinet-Yaak Recovery Zone.
The ruling also takes the government to task for its failure to account for recent deaths of female bears in the recovery zone. Instead, the agencies relied on fuzzy math to paint a rosy picture that the population is recovering, with the judge responding that “these methods ignore the reality of documented bear mortalities in the Cabinet-Yaak Ecosystem.” Even more, the government ignored illegal motorized use and its harmful impacts on grizzly bears.
This court ruling serves as a wake-up call to the Forest Service to stop ignoring the carbon-storing role mature and old-growth forests serve in combating the climate crisis, and that weak analyses of carbon impacts of proposed logging projects are insufficient! It should also signal to the agencies they must account for illegal motorized use and increased grizzly bear deaths when they plan these massive logging projects.
Make no mistake, this decision didn’t happen in a vacuum. This win is in large part due to the dedicated, unrelenting passion and advocacy of communities like ours. Communities of changemakers who face challenges head-on, no matter how big the challenge or how slim the chances of winning.
So, thank you, Guardian! We couldn’t have won this landmark case without your support.
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