Wisconsin's Northern Forests Threatened by Massive Logging Plan

For the past five years environmental groups have joined forces to fight timber sales and to protect the Chequamegon-Nicolet National Forest in Northern Wisconsin. In 2005, the Environmental Law & Policy Center won three federal lawsuits in the Federal District Court in Milwaukee, which led to injunctions and requirements that the U.S. Forest Service reconsider their plans to cut more than 22,000 acres of timber in the Chequamegon-Nicolet. Despite the Federal Court decisions, the Forest Service has already re-approved two of the three timber sales and is moving forward with five new timber sales totaling an extra 34,000 acres of logging.

ELPC filed administrative appeals on the two timber sale re-approvals with the Forest Service's Regional Forester, and more recently on the first of these new timber sales, totaling more than 8,000 acres.

Federal District Court Judge Lynn Adelman has urged the parties to try to reach settlements, but the Forest Service is no longer willing to work with ELPC.

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