Greens Win Big Victory in Tongass Forest

The federal government improperly exempted the country's largest national forest, the 17 million acre Tongass, from Clinton-era roadless rules, the Ninth Circuit ruled. Sitting en banc, the divided appellate judges affirmed a ruling that the Department of Agriculture's 2003 decision to exempt Alaska's Tongass National Forest from the wilderness-friendly Roadless Area Conservation Rule was arbitrary and capricious. The co-defendant National Forest Service is a branch of the Department of Agriculture. "Today's decision is great news for the Tongass National Forest and for all those who rely on its roadless areas," plaintiffs' attorney Tom Waldo, with Earthjustice, said in a statement. "The remaining wild and undeveloped parts of the Tongass are important fish and wildlife habitat and vital to residents and visitors alike for hunting, fishing, recreation, and tourism, the driving forces of the regional economy." The USDA promulgated the roadless rule in 2001 to protect public wilderness areas from human intrusion by limiting road construction and timber harvesting in national forests. Though the USDA initially embraced applying the roadless rule in the Tongass, it changed course under President George W. Bush in 2003 and declared the forest exempt from the rule on the grounds that it would harm village economies and spur litigation . Kake (pronounced "cake"), a Tlingit village, was joined by 11 other plaintiffs, including major environmental groups and the Alaska Wilderness Recreation and Tourism Association. Their 2009 lawsuit claimed the exemption violated the National Environmental Policy Act and the Administrative Procedures Act. Alaska, which gets 25 percent of gross profits from timber sales, intervened on the side of the government.  U.S. District Judge John Sedwick sided with the plaintiffs and vacated the exemption in 2011. After Alaska appealed, a divided three-judge panel called the USDA's about-face on the Tongass exemption " entirely rational ," but the full Ninth Circuit vacated that opinion last year.  On Wednesday, the Ninth Circuit affirmed the district court's original finding that the Tongass exemption was arbitrary...more