Current work in wildlife, rivers, public lands, and climate

Santa Fe, NM – A federal judge issued a ruling late yesterday that makes more permanent a ban on logging in habitat of the endangered Mexican spotted owl in the Jemez Mountains west of Santa Fe. Judge Christina Armijo ruled that the Forest Service had acted illegally when it approved logging within a protected area for the Mexican spotted owl.

In particular, Judge Armijo said the Forest Service had violated four different federal environmental laws by ignoring information from its own biologists who had confirmed that spotted owls were not only nesting in the area, but had produced young in the summer of 2003. The Forest Service, in its rush to permit salvage logging of the burned forest, ignored that information knowing that the presence of nesting owls would prohibit them from logging.

Though Judge Armijo’s preliminary injunction only applies to one of the three units that had been slated for logging, the unit enjoined from logging is approximately 75% of the timber volume and easily has the largest trees and best old-growth habitat of the entire timber sale area. Though there were an additional dozen units in the timber sale, none of those units sold at auction, likely because of their low commercial timber value because they were small trees.

“This is a major victory for our wildlife and forests,” said John Horning of WildEarth Guardians. “We are relieved and heartened that threatened wildlife can still get a fair hearing in the federal courts because it’s clear that the Forest Service is blindly committed to turning our forests into profits for the timber industry,” he added.

At the agreement of both the Forest Service and WildEarth Guardians the judge’s order is the final decision on the matter. Judge Armijo’s decision forbids the Forest Service from allowing further ground-disturbing work unless they can demonstrate substantive compliance with the Endangered Species Act and the National Forest Management Act, something that WildEarth Guardians believes will be difficult to accomplish given the requirement in the Mexican spotted owl recovery plan that salvage logging be permitted only if it improves habitat.

“While we hope this decision will keep these beautiful forests protected for future generations, we are worried that the Forest Service desire to permit salvage logging will encourage future arson fires, ” said Horning. “It’s a great deal for loggers but a rotten one for the public.”

WildEarth Guardians claims that salvage-logging projects are one part of a broader Bush Administration effort to misinform the public by alleging that burned forests are ecological wastelands. In fact much of the area, which burned in August 2002, has been enhanced by the wildfire. Ecologists from Northern Arizona University who selected the area to study fire ecology strongly objected to the logging proposal stating: “the area now has tremendous research value?.worth more for understanding fire effects than its puny salvage value.”

One disappointing component of the ruling is that logging was not halted in an area of essential habitat for the rare Jemez Mountains salamander. The New Mexico Game and Fish Department had opposed the salvage-logging project because of harm to the salamander, a rare species on New Mexico’s threatened species list. WildEarth Guardians asserts that the ruling simply underscores the need to ensure that the Jemez mountains salamander is listed under the Endangered Species Act.

The Lakes fire started on August 26, 2002 from an abandoned campfire south of Fenton Lake State Park. A total of 4256 acres on public and private land burned, 78 percent of which was low to moderate severity. The 500 acre BMG fire burned in June 2002 near Cuba, New Mexico. The Lakes and BMG wildlife timber salvage project plans to log 950 acres and produce 4 million board feet of timber (800 logging trucks). Holliday Timber Products in Edgewood, New Mexico, has completed logging of the two smaller units and will be reimbursed approximately $1,200 for the portion of the project that cannot be logged.