CounterPunch Exclusives

CounterPunch Exclusives

Federal Judge Halts Huge Forest Service Clearcutting Scheme West of Whitefish, Montana

The primary reason we took the U.S. Forest Service to court — and won — over the Round Star Logging Project is because lynx critical habitat is the worst place for clearcuts, and the surest way to drive lynx to extinction is to allow the Forest Service to continue its massive deforestation of the West.

Four conservation groups, Alliance for the Wild Rockies, Yellowstone to Uintas Connection, Council on Wildlife and Fish, and Native Ecosystems Council, filed a lawsuit against the Forest Service in January 2025 in Federal District Court in Missoula,  The lawsuit challenged the project, which is about 13 miles west of Whitefish, Montana, in the Flathead National Forest.

This ill-conceived project authorized logging on 9,151 acres (more than 14 square miles), with 6,324 acres of commercial logging, clearcutting, and bulldozing over 22 miles of new roads. It is not only in lynx critical habitat, but also in important grizzly bear connectivity habitat to grizzly and lynx habitat in the Cabinet-Yaak ecosystem in northwest Montana.

Grizzlies, lynx, and wolverines are present in the area and listed as threatened under the Endangered Species Act, which requires federal agencies to recover, not decimate, those species.

The Forest Service’s so-called........

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