Ketchikan Indian Community v. U.S. Forest Service

The Ketchikan Indian Community, Center for Biological Diversity, and Southeast Alaska Conservation Council filed a lawsuit in the federal district court for the District of Alaska challenging the U.S. Forest Service’s authorization of the South Revillagigedo Integrated Resource Project (South Revilla Project or Project) in the Tongass National Forest. The complaint alleged that the authorization would allow “extensive logging across thousands of acres” of “up to 83 million board feet (MMBF) of trees, the majority old growth.” The complaint alleged that the trees, roots, and soil of the Tongass “function as carbon sponges, absorbing and storing 20 percent of all carbon stored in the National Forest System, serving as a critical resource in the fight against climate change,” and that the South Revilla Project’s environmental effects would include exacerbation of climate change by emitting greenhouse gases and releasing stored carbon. The complaint alleged that the Forest Service was unlikely to offer the whole project as described in the final environmental impact statement because doing so would result in negatively appraised timber sales that the Forest Service is prohibited from advertising. The plaintiffs contended that because the Forest Service did not analyze other sale configurations, it failed to undertake the balancing of multiple uses required by the National Forest Management Act (NFMA) and the Multiple Use and Sustained Yield Act and also failed to properly assess whether restrictions on subsistence uses are necessary under the Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act. In addition, the plaintiffs asserted that the Project did not comply with NFMA requirements to “provide for diversity of plant and animal communities,” including Queen Charlotte goshawks.