Three environmental groups filed a lawsuit in the federal district court for the District of Montana to block the U.S. Forest Service from moving forward with a commercial logging project in the Custer Gallatin National Forest. The groups alleged that the approved project authorized clearcutting on more than 5,500 acres and commercial logging on another 6,600 acres of mature forests, as well as 56 miles of roads. They asserted that the Forest Service violated the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA), the National Forest Management Act, and the Administrative Procedure Act. Under NEPA, the plaintiffs alleged a failure to disclose the project’s climate change impacts, including impacts on carbon storage and sequestration, as well as the potential climate impacts of project implementation, such as the use of fossil fuel engines to build roads, cut trees, and remove and transport cut logs. The plaintiffs alleged that “[t]he Forest Service dismissed the impacts of logging these mature forests as ‘infinitesimal,’ ignoring years of science and agency guidance.”

Challenge to U.S. Forest Service authorization of a commercial logging project in Custer Gallatin National Forest.

Center for Biological Diversity v. U.S. Forest Service

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Challenge to Commercial Logging Project Alleged Failure to Consider Climate Impacts of Logging Mature Forests

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An aim to achieve a quantifiable outcome within a given time-frame, set by an institution such as a national government.

Policy instruments are techniques or tools used by governing authorities to promote certain policies in order to achieve predetermined goals. Put simply, instruments are how a government tries to achieve its goals, with this taxonomy being focused on national policy instruments.

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Renewable energy means all forms of energy produced from renewable sources in a sustainable manner.

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Area of the economy in which actors engage in identical or related activities.

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Either money or something of monetary value is transferred between two or more organisations, people or countries.

Actions or measures to adapt terrestrial systems to climate change.

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Terrestrial means "of the earth" and relates to the risks to ecological system that includes all living organisms and their interactions within land-based environments, such as forests, grasslands, and deserts.

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woman and genders outside of the gender binary

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This sector involves managing waste treatment, sanitation, pollution control and environmental cleanup.

Activities that involve planning, designing and building infrastructure, residential, and commercial structures.

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Challenge to Commercial Logging Project Alleged Failure to Consider Climate Impacts of Logging Mature Forests

Policy instrument

Risk

Impacted group

Just transition

Fossil fuel

Economic sector

Adaptation/resilience

Finance