Forest Service Withdraws Cooke City Deforestation Project on the Border of Yellowstone National Park After Being Sued by Conservation Groups |
CounterPunch Exclusives
CounterPunch Exclusives
Forest Service Withdraws Cooke City Deforestation Project on the Border of Yellowstone National Park After Being Sued by Conservation Groups
Morning in the Beartooth-Absaroka Range, Montana. Photo: Jeffrey St. Clair.
Alliance for the Wild Rockies, Dr. Jesse Logan, Native Ecosystems Council, and the Gallatin Wildlife Association secured another significant win for the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem after the Forest Service withdrew a deforestation project that would have affected one of the healthiest whitebark pine forests in the nation and thousands of acres of Inventoried Roadless Areas on the northeast border of Yellowstone National Park.
Plaintiffs sued to stop this project in March, alleging, in part, that the project ignored legally-mandated protections for whitebark pine, grizzly bears, and lynx under both the Endangered Species Act and the National Environmental Policy Act.
The Cooke City Fuels Project would encompass 19,221 acres in Park County, Montana, within the Absaroka-Beartooth Mountains, bordered by Yellowstone National Park on the west, the Wyoming state line on the south, east of Colter Pass along the........