On March 11, 2011 the U.S. Forest Service withdrew its appeal to the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals regarding the Bussel timber sale in the Idaho Panhandle National Forests. This action means that The Lands Council's August 6, 2010 victory in the U.S. District Court of Idaho is final!

In August  2010, Judge Edward Lodge had found in favor of The Lands Council in a lawsuit challenging logging in the St. Joe Ranger District. The Court halted 2,137 acres of logging and the construction of 5.2 miles of new road in the Bussel Creek watershed, a tributary of Marble Creek about 8 miles northeast of Clarkia, Idaho in Shoshone County.

The major issue is that habitat for wildlife species depending upon old growth and other mature forest has been reduced and fragmented primarily by past logging and road building, and the Forest Service is currently unable to document successful breeding of its old-growth "Management Indicator Species" northern goshawk, pileated woodpecker, and pine marten in the 14,646-acre Project Area. The National Forest Management Act (NFMA) requires the Forest Service to maintain well-distributed populations of wildlife on the Forest, and to monitor population trends to insure that viable populations are being maintained following management actions.

"The Court's Order requires the Forest Service to actually search for and find key wildlife they have merely assumed still exist in a Project Area, before they authorize more logging and road building," stated Jeff Juel, Forest Policy Director at The Lands Council.  "The agency cannot simply assume that a certain amount of habitat-however fragmented and depleted by past logging-will be sufficient to maintain our wild heritage" Juel added.

Another important issue is the Forest Service's management of fire. Despite the Bussel Project's location well away from population centers, the agency's planned response to wildland fire would be all out suppression.  Given the agency's recent admissions that fire suppression has been harmful to forest health across the western U.S., the Court recognized that future analyses of projects' environmental impacts must address the cumulative impacts of fire and fire management. "The days of the agency's perpetuating the never-ending cycle of fire suppression, followed by logging to mitigate the effects of fire suppression, followed by more fire suppression--without considering the long-term impacts of such policies--are coming to a close," stated Jeff Juel. "The Forest Service must find a way to allow wildland fire play its natural role in areas where risks to human life and property are minimal," he added.

Based in Spokane, WA, The Lands Council is one of the leading non-profit conservation organizations in the Inland Northwest. Since its establishment in 1983, The Lands Council has protected thousands of acres of public land, and works to preserve the forests, water, and wildlife we all depend on for life.