PEAC’s Public Land victories

• A Ninth Circuit win that halted cutting of snags from 961 burnt acres in southwestern Oregon and northwestern California, setting a national standard for allowable post-fire logging in late-successional reserves – a major step forward for protecting habitat of both northern spotted owls and cavity nesting species.
• A victory forestalling the Meteor timber sale in the Salmon River watershed on the Klamath National Forest, a Wild and Scenic area home to four stocks of anadromous fish – spring and fall chinook salmon, coho salmon, and pacific lamprey, as well as steelhead, the northern spotted owl, pacific fisher, marten, and bald eagles.
• A Ninth Circuit victory barring logging activities on federal lands that kill and injure northern spotted owls, which set new national standards for government approval of actions resulting in “incidental take” of endangered and threatened species.
• A Ninth Circuit win reinstating the Northwest Forest Plan’s protections for red tree voles and their forest habitat in the Oregon coastal mountains and Cascades, preserving precious old-growth trees and the many species that depend on them.
• Court actions that caused the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to withdraw six additional biological opinions allowing timber harvest in spotted owl habitat, resulting in protection of over 100,000 acres of forest habitat.
• Work toward protection of grizzly bear habitat in Montana’s 2.3 million acre Flathead National Forest. Having led the legal fight more than a decade ago that produced limitations on road density in grizzly habitat, PEAC filed briefs this year challenging federal agencies’ “indeterminate” delay in implementing these road standards.
• A critical Ninth Circuit victory enabling any citizen or group to challenge grazing practices that violate key environmental laws.
• Two major Ninth Circuit victories bolstering protections for salmon in the Columbia Basin, including an order reversing the politically-motivated decision to eliminate the Fish Passage Center (see attached article), and a decision upholding PEAC’s “complete legal smack-down” of a federal dam management plan that failed to adequately protect endangered salmon and steelhead.
• A federal district court victory overturning a Habitat Conservation Plan (HCP) that failed to adequately protect vernal pools in Southern California, ephemeral wetlands that harbor plant and animal communities found nowhere else in the world.
• An August victory in federal court halting 49 gold mining operations in Eastern Oregon, protecting the North Fork Burnt River watershed and all sensitive species inhabiting it, including Redband trout, the Columbia spotted frog, and three plant species.
• An Oregon district court victory requiring federal consideration of steelhead habitats impacted by poor grazing practice in the mid-Columbia River.