Kootenai National Forest

Environmental groups sued the Kootenai National Forest today, June 30, over its approval of a controversial logging project in Northwest Montana.

The Kootenai National Forest finalized a contentious logging project on Tuesday after a court-ordered evaluation found that the Black Ram project won’t severely impact grizzly bears and other threatened species. But environmental groups are pushing back against that finding.

A U.S. District Court judge put a hold on the project Wednesday on the basis that the Forest Service did not properly evaluate the project’s impact on the small threatened grizzly bear population in the bordering Cabinet-Yaak ecosystem.

The nearly 5,000-acre Knotty Pine project would include roughly 3,000 acres of commercial logging as well 40 miles of road maintenance and road building. WildEarth Guardians in a lawsuit filed in federal court in Missoula argue that work will harm the local grizzly bear population.

Under what’s known as Good Neighbor Authority, the Montana Department of Natural Resources and Conservation can carry out logging, thinning and other projects on U.S. Forest Service Land.

Earlier this week, Gov. Greg Gianforte announced one of the first timber sales to go through a state-federal partnership this year. The amount of timber…

On Wednesday, the Kootenai National Forest signaled that it's moving forward on a sprawling and controversial logging project.The U.S. Forest Service says…

The U.S. Forest Service Tuesday withdrew its appeal of a 2019 court ruling ordering it to examine ineffective closures of temporary logging roads in…

A legal battle over whether temporary logging roads in grizzly bear habitat are effectively being closed may put a damper on logging projects in three…

The controversy over the Pacific Northwest National Scenic Trail’s (PNT) route through grizzly bear habitat in the Yaak Valley is headed to court. The…