For Immediate Release: September 29, 2003

Contact: Jeff Juel or Tom Woodbury at 406-728-5733

Missoula, Montana — The Ecology Center today released a new, comprehensive report that summarizes the results of its investigation into the issue of old growth in the thirteen National Forests spanning Montana and Northern Idaho. The report, "Old Growth at a Crossroads," concludes that, after more than fifteen years of Forest Plan implementation, old-growth forests and the wildlife species that depend upon them are being threatened by intentional neglect. According to the report’s author, Jeff Juel of the Ecology Center, "this report reveals a Forest Service policy and practice of concealing the impacts that industrial logging is having on the most at-risk wildlife species."

The report follows up on the group’s recent success in federal court, in which years of logging in the Kootenai National Forest was ruled illegal due to the Forest Service’s failure to protect old-growth species. In that case, Chief Judge Donald Molloy ruled that, because monitoring of old-growth species had "tapered off in recent years" while logging continued apace, "there is not enough information to determine populations, which is the very thing that the Forest Service is supposed to be monitoring by law." According to Tom Woodbury, the Missoula attorney who argued the conservationists’ case, "the same is true of every other National Forest in the Region, leaving each vulnerable to the same kind of legal challenge."

The Ecology Center is calling on the Forest Service to work with them cooperatively in crafting both short-term and long-term solutions to the problem, promising an end to litigation over old-growth habitat in exchange for a proactive approach to species protection. The group recently submitted a detailed road-map to Bradley Powell, the Regional Forester of national forests in the Northern Rockies. According to Woodbury, "all we have asked Mr. Powell to do is to make a firm commitment to implementing existing laws, regulations, and official Forest Service policies and procedures. If they are truly interested in protecting species, and avoiding protracted litigation, now is the time for them to act," Woodbury said.

The Ecology Center is a citizen conservation organization founded in 1988, dedicated to protecting the remaining wildlands and wildlife of the Northern Rockies region.  The Ecology Center works to enforce environmental laws and ensure that stewardship of our public lands is based on sound science and sustainable practices. 

In preparing the old-growth report, the Ecology Center investigated the status of each National Forest’s old-growth habitat inventory, and examined how well each Forest has monitored populations of old-growth wildlife species over the life of their Forest Plans. Old-growth forests provide habitat necessary for approximately a third of all forest-dwelling wildlife species in the region, including the threatened Canada lynx, as well as other species in decline like the wolverine, northern goshawk, and great gray owl. When native forests are fragmented by logging and roads, they cease to function as habitat for these species, with long-term consequences for forest health. To address this concern, the Forest Plans adopted by each National Forest in the late 1980s spelled out minimum requirements for the protection of old-growth species.

According to the report, these protections turned out to be empty promises. Two central findings of the report are:

• No Northern Region National Forest has completed an accurate old-growth inventory to determine whether old-growth species have enough habitat remaining to avoid extinction.
• None of the Forests have tracked the impacts of logging and roads on the population levels of key old-growth species, legally required to avoid irreversible damage from forest management. In fact, after more than fifteen years, none have even revealed existing, or baseline, populations for these species, as required as a first step by most Forest Plans.

Woodbury believes the consistency of these findings amounts to official Forest Service policy. "It seems that there was a conscious decision to keep the public in the dark on species impacts, especially following the spotted owl decision," Woodbury said. "This completely undermines the laws governing our forests," he continued, "which require public disclosure and sound scientific stewardship."

"Old-growth forests represent the rarest, most critical habitat remaining for wildlife," according to Juel. "Unfortunately, since old forests contain the biggest trees, they have suffered the most from industrial logging," Juel continued. "And this," Juel said, "is the real forest health crisis, because without wildlife, our forests will lose their wild character, and future generations will be impoverished."

To view or download the report "Old Growth At A Crossroads", its Executive Summary, or other relevant documents go to the following website:

http://www.wildrockies.org/teci/oldgrowth/