In response to a lawsuit from a coalition of conservation groups including the Sierra Club, the U.S. Forest Service has announced that it is scrapping plans to log an important area of North Carolina’s Nantahala National Forest near the Whitewater River.
The announcement, made in a letter last week, comes nearly six months after the Southern Environmental Law Center, on behalf of the Center for Biological Diversity, Chattooga Conservancy, Defenders of Wildlife, MountainTrue, and Sierra Club, sued the Forest Service over the logging plans. The lawsuit would not have prevented the agency from implementing other parts of the Southside timber project.
The agency offered to abandon its logging proposal in the area if the coalition of conservation groups dismissed the lawsuit, which they anticipate doing later this week.
The area spared from logging sits above stunning waterfalls, boasts towering trees, and shelters rare plants in a unique, wet microclimate. The Forest Service had slated it for heavy logging in the controversial Southside timber project.
Because of the area’s incredible ecological value and stunning beauty, the Forest Service designated it as a “Special Interest Area” in the recently published Nantahala-Pisgah Forest Plan. Destructive projects, like logging and roadbuilding, are significantly restricted in Special Interest Areas. The Forest Service’s previous decision to move forward with the logging project contradicted its own decision to protect the area, undermined one of the few things its new Forest Plan got right, and violated federal law.
“The decision by the Forest Service is the right one, given the recent federal emphasis on old growth protection and the importance of recognizing North Carolina’s Natural Heritage sites. Unfortunately, it took legal action for the agency to make the right decision,” said David Reid, Sierra Club National Forest Issue Chair.