Gravelly Range. Photo: Jeffrey St. Clair.

The U.S. Forest Service cancelled an illegal public land logging project due to a recently-filed lawsuit by Montana conservation group Alliance for the Wild Rockies on May 20th. The illegal logging was scheduled to occur in the Gravelly Mountains of southwest Montana, in an area that provides a critical wildlife corridor connecting the Yellowstone area to other mountain ranges in Montana. The area is home to endangered species including grizzly bears, lynx, and wolverines, as well as large wild elk herds.

The illegal Greenhorn logging project would have allowed wildlife habitat destruction in the form of industrial logging, road-building, and burning activities across thousands of acres of public lands in this key wildlife corridor zone in Montana’s Beaverhead-Deerlodge National Forest. The government cancelled the project in response to Alliance’s lawsuit because the government knew it would lose in court.

The project would have been........

© CounterPunch