A federal judge has rejected the Pisgah-Nantahala National Forest Plan, saying the plan violates the Endangered Species Act.
The U.S. Forest Service allowed for a level of logging that conservationists said could make the forest and its species vulnerable to climate change and extinction.
The court ruled that the agency’s plan, which included a large increase in logging, failed to account for habitat destruction that could drive four endangered species of bats to extinction.
MountainTrue, along with Defenders of Wildlife, the Sierra Club, and the Center for Biological Diversity sued the Forest Service over its plan in 2024, alleging that not only did it fail to account for endangered species, but also that the plan deserved revision after Helene leveled 187,000 acres of trees on public land.
“That fell short of protecting the important qualities of the forest, like clean water and important wildlife habitat,” said Josh Kelly, the Resilient Forests Director for MountainTrue.
The plan has been a source of conflict ever since the Forest Service began the revision process in 2013. Conservationists have worried that the plan allows for too much logging, Stakeholders from across the region gave the Forest Service feedback on the plan. It released the final document in 2023.
The Endangered Species Act requires federal agencies to consult with the Fish and Wildlife Service to ensure that their actions do not jeopardize endangered flora and fauna. This consultation informs the environmental impact statement required for any federal project.
The U.S. District Court for the Western District of North Carolina ruled that while the agency stated in 2021 that its plan would not impact any species adversely, it reversed course in 2022, saying the plan would, in fact, impact habitat for four bat species. In 2023, the Forest Service reversed course again, saying it believed conditions would improve over time. The plaintiffs disagreed.
“The Forest Plan had claimed that conditions for endangered bats were going to improve based on some very flawed assumptions that increased logging would improve bat habitat across the board,” Kelly said. “And when we looked deeply into the biological opinion, we found just lots of logical flaws.”
While logging can improve conditions for the Indiana bat, Kelly said, other species, like the gray bat, suffer from sediment in water that logging can cause. The court concurred.
Spencer Scheidt, an attorney with Southern Environmental Law Center who worked on the case, wants the Forest Service to create a new plan with these endangered species in mind.
“This is kind of new territory,” Scheidt said in an interview with BPR. “I think that it's a little bit unclear what happens now.”
The previous plan, which dates back to 1994, does comply with the Endangered Species Act, Scheidt said. He believes the Forest Service could fall back on that plan while moving forward from here.
The Forest Service could appeal the decision, or try to ignore it. In the latter case, Scheidt said, there will be more lawsuits to come.
In an email, the Forest Service told BPR they are still working to understand the implications of the decision, and are committed to complying with federal environmental law.
