Letter to Our Members: We’re Going to Court to Protect Endangered Wildlife

On Thursday, April 18, MountainTrue, in collaboration with our partners at the Southern Environmental Law Center, the Sierra Club, Defenders of Wildlife, and the Center for Biological Diversity, filed a lawsuit against the U.S. Forest Service and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service for violations of the Endangered Species Act committed during consultation and development of the Biological Opinion on which the Nantahala-Pisgah Forest Plan relies. This legal action seeks to protect endangered wildlife that are threatened by the new Forest Plan, which prioritizes commercial logging in habitat that is critical for the survival of several species.

Our decision to pursue litigation was not made lightly. After our previously issued Notice of Intent to Sue—a mandatory precursor under the Endangered Species Act—was filed last July, it became clear that the Forest Service was not going to take steps to correct its failures. Despite our extensive efforts to work collaboratively with the Forest Service to produce a balanced and scientifically sound plan, we are again forced to go to court to seek the changes necessary to protect endangered wildlife. This is MountainTrue’s commitment to protect our diverse ecosystems and the communities that cherish these forests.

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Our members and supporters power our Resilient Forests program. Donate today, so we can continue to protect our old-growth and mature forests, which are critical habitats for many endangered and threatened species.

Photo of a Virginia big-eared bat by Larisa Bishop-Boros – Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0

The flawed Forest Plan jeopardizes not only the endangered northern long-eared bat, Indiana bat, Virginia big-eared bat, and the gray bat but also impacts species like the little brown bat and the tricolored bat, which are currently being considered for the endangered species list. Our lawsuit aims to rectify the inaccuracies, incomplete data, and flawed analysis that underpin the current plan, ensuring a more sustainable future for these critical habitats and the wildlife that dwell there.

To be clear, our goal with this lawsuit is not to stop logging on the national forest. However, we believe logging should be limited in areas known to be used by endangered bats. Unfortunately, the new forest plan allows run-of-the-mill logging in many of these areas without even looking for endangered wildlife.

Our Resilient Forests program, powered by the support of our members and donors, is essential in this fight. We thank you for your generous support. Every donation helps us work to protect old-growth, mature forests, and critical wildlife habitat.

The path ahead is challenging, but with you by our side, we can continue to advocate for a forest management plan that truly reflects the ecological and communal values we stand for. The future of the Nantahala and Pisgah National Forests depends on our collective action.

Thank you for standing with us,

Gray Jernigan
Deputy Director & General Counsel

Conservation Groups sue Forest Service over Nantahala-Pisgah Forest Plan’s impact on endangered wildlife

ASHEVILLE, N.C. — This week, a coalition of conservation groups filed a lawsuit over glaring flaws in the Nantahala-Pisgah Forest Plan that put endangered forest bats at risk, following through on a previous 60-day Notice of Intent to Sue letter.

The Nantahala-Pisgah Forest Plan guides the long-term future of two of the nation’s most popular and beloved public lands. Together, the Nantahala and Pisgah National Forests total more than a million acres, contain 1,500 miles of trails, and boast some of western North Carolina’s most iconic destinations. The forests are also major drivers of local economies — each year they attract millions of visitors looking to enjoy the area’s incredible diversity of wildlife.

But the newly published 2023 Forest Plan aims to quintuple the amount of logging in the Nantahala and Pisgah National Forests and puts sensitive areas, including important habitat for endangered forest bats, on the chopping block. Instead of fully studying the impact this massive expansion in logging would have on federally protected bats, the Forest Service relied on incomplete and inaccurate information to downplay the increased risks posed by the new Plan. The agency even ignored data showing where bats are found on the national forests and wrongly assumed that forests outside of the bats’ ranges would make up for cutting their actual habitats.

The flawed analysis clearly violates the Endangered Species Act, which requires federal agencies to use the best available science when considering how their decisions might harm federally protected species.

The northern long-eared bat, Indiana bat, Virginia big-eared bat, and gray bat, which are the focus of this lawsuit, are teetering on the edge of extinction and the Forest Service has admitted that protecting their habitats in the Nantahala and Pisgah National Forests is essential to the species’ survival. The bats are important pieces of these forests’ ecosystems and if they are unable to survive, there will be a domino effect throughout western North Carolina.

The Southern Environmental Law Center filed the case in federal district court for the Western District of North Carolina on behalf of Defenders of Wildlife, MountainTrue, Sierra Club and the Center for Biological Diversity. Statements from the groups are provided below:

“The amazing diversity of wildlife is a major part of what makes the Nantahala and Pisgah National Forests so special. The Forest Service should be doing everything they can to protect the rare and endangered animals that call these forests home, not recklessly putting their habitats on the chopping block.” Sam Evans, Leader of SELC’s National Forests and Parks Program, said. “The Forest Service had a great opportunity to restore forests and protect endangered forest bats, but the agency refused – now we are suing.”

“The U.S. Forest Service is duty bound to conserve species listed under the Endangered Species Act,” said Ben Prater, Southeast Program Director for Defenders of Wildlife. “The revised Nantahala-Pisgah Forest Plan falls short of the obligation to prevent extinction and secure the habitat strongholds that these public lands provide for four critically endangered bat species. The Plan commits us to accelerated logging and road building for the next 20 years, putting these imperiled bats at even greater risk. This is simply unacceptable for endangered bats that so desperately need our best efforts to survive and recover.”

“Sustainable and economically viable commercial logging is not incompatible with protecting our endangered wildlife. Instead, the Forest Service ignored the best available science and withheld critical information from the Fish and Wildlife Service, which oversees endangered species protection. They forced our hand when they broke the law. Now, we’re going to court to protect wildlife and to win a more responsible Forest Management Plan,” Josh Kelly, Public Lands Field Biologist for MountainTrue, said.

“The Pisgah and Nantahala National Forests serve as anchor points for sensitive habitat that protects a marvelous array of plants and wildlife, which are increasingly under pressure. The revised Forest Plan misses the boat for protecting key wildlife by emphasizing activities that fragment and degrade habitat, especially for species that rely on mature and undisturbed forests. The N.C. Sierra Club will continue to work to protect the wildlife and habitats that we cannot afford to lose,” David Reid, National Forests Issue Chair for the Sierra Club, said.

“The Forest Service has prioritized logging over protecting some of the most endangered species on the planet,” said Will Harlan, Southeast Director at the Center for Biological Diversity. “These bats are on the brink of extinction, yet the Forest Service wants to aggressively increase logging in their forest habitats. It is another heartbreaking failure of the Forest Plan.”

Media Contacts:
Southern Environmental Law Center: Eric Hilt, 615-622-1199, ehilt@selctn.org
Defenders of Wildlife: Jay Petrequin, 202-772-0243, jpetrequin@defenders.org
MountainTrue: Karim Olaechea, 828-400-0768, karim@mountaintrue.org
Sierra Club: David Reid, 828-713-1607, daviddbreid@charter.net
Center for Biological Diversity: Will Harlan, 828-230-6818, wharlan@biologicaldiversity.org

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Breaking: MountainTrue joins climate lawsuit on Forest Service logging practices

Dear MountainTrue Members and Supporters,

As advocates for our environment, we find ourselves at a pivotal moment in our fight against climate change. Last year, the Earth endured its hottest year, shattering previous records and exacerbating climate-related challenges such as droughts, loss of biodiversity, extreme weather events, and heat-related fatalities. The urgency to act has never been greater.

Amidst this escalating crisis, the US Forest Service’s outdated approach to forest management is perplexing. Despite clear evidence of our worsening climate reality, the Forest Service has increased the volume of timber harvested from our national forests to levels unseen in recent decades. This practice contradicts the urgent need to mitigate climate change and the Forest Service’s own policies and goals while posing a direct threat to the ecosystems within our Eastern forests, which have been disproportionately targeted for timber extraction.

This is why MountainTrue has taken the significant step of joining the Southern Environmental Law Center and the Chattooga Conservancy in filing a lawsuit challenging the Forest Service’s annual timber targets. Our legal action challenges the way the Department of Agriculture and the Forest Service set their timber targets and how the agency analyzes the cumulative carbon impacts of the timber projects it designs to fulfill these targets. It also seeks to halt further timber sales in the Southeast that contribute to the 2024 target (except where necessary for wildfire risk mitigation) until the Forest Service complies with the National Environmental Policy Act.
Read our court filing.
Read the press release.

Our members and supporters power our Resilient Forests program. Donate today to protect our forests as a critical part of our climate solution.

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Our forests are invaluable resources in the fight against climate change, sequestering billions of tons of carbon and actively converting CO2 into oxygen. However, the Forest Service’s single-minded pursuit of timber targets undermines these natural processes, releasing significant amounts of carbon into the atmosphere and setting back our collective efforts to combat global warming. Additionally, chasing the national timber target creates impacts on water quality, recreation, and imperiled wildlife, while distracting the Forest Service from more pressing tasks like preventing wildfire, saving trees from invasive pests, and controlling invasive plant species.

This lawsuit is not an attempt to end logging in our national forests. Instead, it aims to challenge the outdated methods that prioritize crude volume targets over the health of our forests and the planet. By holding the Forest Service accountable, MountainTrue is also supporting the broader objectives of the Biden administration’s climate policies and efforts to protect our nation’s old-growth and mature forests.

We stand at a critical juncture, and this lawsuit represents a bold step forward in our mission to preserve our planet for future generations. Your continued support and engagement are vital as we navigate this challenge. Together, we can ensure that our forests are managed sustainably and in harmony with our climate goals.

Thank you for standing with us in this crucial fight.

With determination,

Gray Jernigan
Deputy Director & General Counsel

Tell Madison County to Oppose Dangerous Industrial Biomass Facilities

The Madison County Planning Board is expected to vote on whether to recommend changes to the county’s land-use code that would allow dangerous, industrial biomass facilities in Madison County. The proposed amendments to the county’s land-use ordinance open the door to industrial-sized biomass facilities that would emit more climate-changing carbon into the atmosphere, cause significant air pollution, and pose serious fire risks to nearby residents.

Take Action: Email the Planning Board and County Commissioners and let them know you want a clean and safe Madison County.

BACKGROUND:

In response to public feedback, the board has significantly revised the definition of what constitutes a large biomass facility, requires they obtain a special permit, and restricts their operations to industrial-zoned areas of the county. Here are the latest revisions to the definition of a “large biomass facility”:

“A facility that converts biomass sources into value-added products energy for public or private use. Biomass includes but is not limited to wood and wood processing waste, wood pellets, agricultural crops and waste materials, biogenic materials in municipal solid waste, animal manure, and human sewage.”

Large Biomass Facility:

Annual Biomass Throughput: A large biomass facility processes over 5,000 metric tons of biomass per year.
Energy Production: A large biomass facility generates over 10,000 MWh or more energy annually.
Number of Employees: A large biomass facility has over 50 employees
Capital Investment Threshold: A large biomass facility requires an investment of over $5 million.

This broad definition raises three key concerns:

Inconsistencies in Regulation: The definition of “large biomass facility” appears to include activities already separately defined and regulated within the ordinance, such as sawmills and certain manufacturing facilities. This inconsistency in regulation creates confusion for residents, business owners, and the County in determining which set of rules applies to specific activities.
Potential for Unintended Consequences: An overly broad definition could inadvertently allow certain activities, such as a sawmill evolving into a wood pellet production facility, to escape more stringent permitting requirements. This could occur because nonconforming land uses (i.e., land uses that pre-date an ordinance amendment that makes them newly “nonconforming”) are typically allowed to continue as long as they do not change their primary use or expand significantly. Therefore, a clearer definition is needed to prevent such loopholes.
Unfair Scope: The proposal’s distinction between “large” and “small” biomass facilities does not serve the public or the ordinance’s purposes. It would both allow industrial-scale facilities in residential areas while punishing truly “small” biomass land uses—especially under the currently overbroad definition of “biomass”—by requiring regular folks to go through an expensive and time-consuming set of rezoning and permitting processes. The ordinance should focus on making sure industrial biomass facilities are properly located without sweeping up landowners looking to make occasional, harmless use of collected waste materials. Failing to make this distinction may lead to unnecessary hostility towards environmental advocacy and regulation.

A More Refined Definition

To address these concerns and create a more precise and effective regulatory framework, we propose a more tailored definition of “large biomass facility.” Our suggested definition would:

Apply only to facilities that produce biomass products for specific off-site uses, such as electricity generation, heating, or transportation fuel.
Tailor the amendment so that if the facility combusts biomass on site, the definition applies only if any electricity generated is transmitted for off-site use.
Include wood pellet biomass facilities explicitly within the definition to ensure they are adequately regulated.
Maintain the broad definition of “biomass” while narrowing the scope of facilities that fall under this definition.

Additional Considerations

In addition to refining the definition of “large biomass facility” to help distinguish between different types of biomass-related activities, we support:

Requiring special use permits for biomass facilities,
Correcting what may have been a mistake in section 8.11.12 (“Noise”) that regulates facilities that generate noise pollution “up to 70 decibels.” We believe the county meant “more than 70 decibels.

It Shouldn’t Take A Lawsuit to Make the Forest Service Comply With Federal Law

Pictured above: Part of the Nantahala National Forest within the scope of the Southside Timber Project. Photo credit: Will Harlan, Center for Biological Diversity, via Michaela Gregory of the Southern Environmental Law Center.

A letter to MountainTrue supporters from our Public Lands Field Biologist, Josh Kelly:

I’m writing to let you know that MountainTrue is part of a coalition of conservation groups that filed a lawsuit against the U.S. Forest Service to prevent the agency from logging a sensitive area of the Nantahala National Forest in violation of federal law.

The lawsuit was filed this morning, January 31, in the federal district court for the Western District of North Carolina by the Southern Environmental Law Center on behalf of MountainTrue, the Center for Biological Diversity, Chattooga Conservancy, Defenders of Wildlife, and Sierra Club.

The lawsuit addresses the Southside Timber Project, which aims to log areas near the Whitewater River in the Nantahala National Forest. The landscape boasts stunning waterfalls, towering oak trees, and critical habitat for rare species.

The Southside Timber Project is not only massively unpopular but is also inconsistent with the recently updated Nantahala-Pisgah Forest Plan. Limiting logging in the Whitewater River and surrounding areas was one of the things the Forest Plan got right. Now, the Forest Service is poised to disregard its own Plan to pursue its outdated mission of turning old forests into young ones. The Forest Service believes that the new Forest Plan doesn’t apply to the Southside Project, but we insist that for the new plan to have any meaning at all, it must apply.

MountainTrue does not oppose logging on principle, and we don’t take litigation lightly. However, with both the Forest Plan and this Southside Timber Project, Forest Service leaders have put commercial logging first and ignored federal law and overwhelming public support for conserving our most beloved natural areas and landscapes. Fixing these problems would have only removed 50 acres from over 300 acres of logging. They have even ignored concerns from the agency’s own scientists about the impact logging could have on the already imperiled Blue Ridge lineage of the green salamander. And don’t be fooled by the Forest Service’s claims that the project will benefit the Golden-Winged Warbler. There are no known populations of this bird in the project area, and it is well known that there must be a population within two miles of new habitat for it to become occupied.

There are one million acres in Pisgah and Nantahala National Forests. That’s plenty of land to accommodate sustainable logging practices and create new young forest habitat for deer and grouse without destroying an area that the Forest Service itself has deemed an ‘exceptional ecological community’ with ‘features that are not found anywhere else in […] the Eastern United States.’

We have opposed the Southside Timber Project from the beginning. MountainTrue analyzed the project to assess the damage it would cause to these important habitats and filed formal objections. We even offered to pay the Forest Service for the timber rights to 37 acres to keep old-growth and rare species habitat within the project area standing and intact. The Southside Project is the only example I know of in my 16-year career where the Forest Service documented the presence of old-growth forest and chose to cut it anyway. The decision to log inside a Special Interest Area and Wild and Scenic River Corridor follows the same stubborn and short-sighted pattern.

The Southside Project was a bad project when the Forest Service first proposed it, and it is still a bad project today. Unfortunately, it looks like it’s going to take a public interest lawsuit to get the Forest Service to act responsibly and comply with federal law.

Sincerely,

Josh Kelly, MountainTrue Public Lands Field Biologist

Click here to read the joint statement about this litigation released on January 31, 2024, by the Southern Environmental Law Center, Center for Biological Diversity, Chattooga Conservancy, Defenders of Wildlife, MountainTrue, and Sierra Club.

Support resilient forests in the Southern Blue Ridge

If you care about the forests and public lands of Western North Carolina and the Southern Blue Ridge Mountains, I hope you’ll consider donating to support this critical work.

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Take Action to Protect Old-Growth and Mature Forests in Nantahala-Pisgah National Forests

The U.S. Forest Service has announced a plan to amend all 128 forest management plans nationwide — including the plan for the Pisgah-Nantahala National Forests — in accordance with President Biden’s Executive Order directing his administration to conserve old-growth forests.

This is a critical opportunity to fix some of the issues with the deeply flawed Pisgah-Nantahala management plan that placed 100,000 acres of old-growth forests, natural heritage areas, roadless areas, and sensitive habitats in zones that are open to commercial logging. You can take action in two ways:

Sign our petition calling on the Forest Service to amend the Nantahala Pisgah National Forests management plan to protect our old-growth forests.
(Deadline: Feb. 2, 9 AM)
Submit your own unique public comment through the Forest Service portal.
(Deadline: Feb. 2, 11:59 PM)

Old-growth forests store large amounts of carbon, clean the air we breathe, maintain and increase biodiversity, filter water, and reduce wildfire risks. The old-growth forests of the Nantahala-Pisgah National Forests are home to several endangered and threatened species, including four species of endangered bats and the imperiled Blue Ridge lineage of green salamanders.

The amendments proposed by the Forest Service should create standards for the protection of all old-growth forests on National Forest Lands. It’s important that the new rule is strong enough to protect the rich biodiversity of our region and to keep these massive carbon stores firmly rooted in the soil to mitigate climate change and flexible enough to allow for the restoration of old-growth stand structure and wildfire resilience.

Thank you for your commitment to resilient forests. Please take action today.