Red Lodge Clearinghouse

Sierra Forest Products withdrew its appeal days before the company was scheduled to appear before the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals on June 10. The company was appealing an earlier decision throwing out timber projects that were grandfathered in when President Bill Clinton created the monument in April 2000.

Environmental groups opposed those contracts, saying the projects would have cut down old-growth forests adjacent to sequoia stands, damaging the habitat of the Pacific fisher, a weasel-like animal that requires old-growth habitat covered by a thick canopy of trees.

"The timber sales are right in the heart of the fisher" territory, said Craig Thomas, executive director of the Sierra Forest Legacy. "It's one of the most at-risk critters there is."

Pat Gallagher, director of environmental law at the Sierra Club, said the lumber contracts that were grandfathered in did not take into account recent science that shows how imperiled the fisher has become. According to the Center for Biological Diversity, the Pacific fisher occupies less than half the range it inhabited in California 75 years ago.

In 2000, groups petitioned to have a segment of the population in California, Oregon and Washington included on the federal Endangered Species List. But the Fish and Wildlife Service said that while listing was warranted, it was precluded by higher priority actions. The Pacific fisher is now on the federal "candidate" species list.

The Bush administration took heat from environmentalists in 2004 when it proposed a management plan that would have allowed for the mechanical removal of some trees in the national monument to reduce the potential for wildfires.

The Sierra Club, along with a coalition of environmental groups including the Sierra Forest Legacy, launched a legal battle against the Forest Service in 2005, saying its proposed management plan would permit harmful and irreparable logging within the monument and would harm the Pacific fisher population.

In 2006, Judge Charles Breyer of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California sided with the coalition of environmental groups in throwing out the management documents for the national monument as well as enjoining four controversial timber sales. Claiming the agency failed to satisfy the National Environmental Policy Act and Administrative Procedures Act when writing the management plan, Breyer also said the Forest Service failed to take the proper "hard look" at new information regarding the effects of the timber projects on the Pacific fisher (E&ENews PM, Aug. 22, 2006).

The Forest Service decided not to appeal the judge's decision, but Sierra Forest Products appealed the injunction against the timber projects. Forest Service officials did not return phone calls requesting comment by press time.

Bill Corcoran, senior regional director of the Sierra Club, said the termination of the legal battle would have important long-term implications for the region and the animal species that reside there. "The bottom line is, what is the future of the monument? Is it a place that we will manage to protect California's wildlife heritage, or allow harmful logging to undermine the long-term health of a national monument?"

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