An environmental group is taking the Forest Service to court over the agency’s timber-harvesting goals, saying they ignore the effects on emissions tied to climate change.
In a complaint filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, the Southern Environmental Law Center, based in Charlottesville, Virginia, said the Forest Service runs afoul of the National Environmental Policy Act by not accounting for the cutting of carbon-sequestering trees across the 193 million-acre national forest system. About 146 million acres of the national system is forested, with the remainder in other landscapes such as grassland.
“Analyzing the cumulative effects of Forest Service logging projects could make a meaningful difference in agency decisions,” the SELC said in its complaint. “With their eyes open to the carbon effects of their actions, the Department of Agriculture and the Forest Service could decide to reduce the national, regional or unit-specific timber targets to reduce carbon emissions.”
said in its complaint
Or, the Forest Service could scale back logging in carbon-dense forests, such as in the South, while focusing harvest in other areas, said the SELC, which sued on behalf of the Chattooga Conservancy; MountainTrue; and Debbie Kruzen of Mountain View, Missouri, near the Mark Twain National Forest.
