Sierra
Club Wins Lawsuit against Logging
Giant Sequoia National Monument
GIANT
SEQUOIA WINS COURT PROTECTION
Judge Rules Against Bush Administration Logging
Plan
August 22, 2006
San Francisco, CA – A federal judge today ruled that the Bush
administration's controversial plan to allow commercial logging in Giant
Sequoia National Monument Conservation is illegal. The Sierra Club and
other conservation groups celebrated the decision and urged the Bush
administration to restore and protect the Giant Sequoia National Monument
with the same standard of care given to neighboring Sequoia National
Park.
"The Forest Service's interest in harvesting timber has trampled
the applicable environmental laws," wrote Judge Charles R. Breyer,
writing for the United States District Court for Northern California,
who also ruled that the "Monument Plan is decidedly incomprehensible."
In addition to ruling that the Forest Service's overall plan to allow
commercial logging in Giant Sequoia Monument is illegal, Judge Breyer
also invalidated several individual timber sales because of their impact
on endangered wildlife.
"The Forest Service should be managing Giant Sequoia as a gift
to future generations, not as a gift to the timber industry," said
Bruce Hamilton, Sierra Club's Conservation Director. "Today's ruling
only strengthens the case for transferring management of this magnificent
Monument to neighboring Sequoia National Park, where it would be treated
with the good stewardship it deserves."
Giant Sequoia National Monument boasts more than half of all the Sequoia
redwoods in the world, with most of the remainder found in the adjacent
National Park. The popularity and awe-inspiring beauty of the Sequoia
forest and its wildlife led President Bill Clinton permanently protect
the forest as a National Monument under the Antiquities Act. Earlier,
President George Bush Sr. had proclaimed the Sequoia groves off limits
to commercial logging.
In 2005, the Bush administration officially reversed those policies
by finalizing plans to allow what amounts to commercial logging in the
Monument, even inside the prized Giant Sequoia groves. The administration's
plan would have allowed 7.5 million board feet of timber to be removed
annually from the Monument, enough to fill 1,500 logging trucks each
year. This policy would have included logging of healthy trees of any
species as big as 30 inches in diameter or more. Trees that size can
be as much as 300 years old.
As a model for better management, the Sierra Club and others strongly
urged the Bush administration to look to nearby Sequoia National Park,
where innovative conservation and fire prevention strategies have reinvigorated
the Sequoia groves and made nearby communities safer. Unlike the Forest
Service, which has proposed selling timber contracts to log healthy trees,
the National Park Service effectively uses prescribed burning and thinning
of smaller, more flammable trees and brush.
The complaint against the Forest Service was brought by the Sierra Club,
Sierra Nevada Forest Protection Campaign, Earth Island Institute, Tule
River Conservancy, Sequoia Forest Keeper, and Center for Biological Diversity,
and in separate suit filed by the California Attorney General. The Sierra
Club, Earthjustice and John Muir Project co-counselled the case.
"The plan proposed by the Forest Service ignores the clear recommendations
of its own fire scientists that fire risk reduction is not about logging
large trees," stated Craig Thomas, Director of the Sierra Nevada
Forest Protection Campaign.
"The American people are looking to their government to protect
these forests forever as a National Monument, not as a tree farm," stated
Carla Cloer of the Tule River Conservancy. "Logging the Sequoia
National Monument is just as unacceptable as selling the Statue of Liberty
for scrap metal.
To view maps of the areas within the Monument where logging will be
permitted, go to: http://www.sierraclub.org/wildlands/sequoiaplan
In his opinion [PDF
text] in the Attorney General's lawsuit, Breyer held the plan lacked "coherent
or clear guidance" and was "decidedly incomprehensible." In
a separate opinion [PDF
text] in the case brought by environmental groups, Breyer issued a permanent
injunction barring the Forest Service from continuing with its plans
until the Forest Service conducts an adequate and sufficient supplemental
... review" under the National Environmental Policy Act .
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