Lawsuit Challenges Massive, Decades Long Logging/Burning Project in Nevada’s Humboldt-Toiyabe National Forest
Pinyon Jay. Photo: David Menke, USFWS.
WHAT: Three conservation advocacy groups sued the U.S. Forest Service for approving logging and burning throughout Nevada’s Humboldt-Toiyabe National Forest in violation of the National Environmental Policy Act, National Forest Management Act, and the Administrative Procedures Act.
Additionally a 60-day Notice of Intent to Sue has been filed against the Forest Service and U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service for violating the Endangered Species Act by planned deforestation of the Jarbidge River watershed, which contains the nation’s southernmost population of native bull trout, which were listed as ‘threatened’ under the Endangered Species Act in 1999.
WHO: The Alliance for the Wild Rockies, Native Ecosystems Council, Wildlands Defense
WHERE: The Humboldt-Toiyabe National Forest manages a series of beautiful, forest covered, sky island ranges in the Great Basin. The cooling forests and high elevation sagebrush in these mountain islands provide cooling refugia for imperiled species from all of the threats that they face such as mining, global warming, and transmission lines.
WHY: On September 24, 2025, the Forest Service authorized the Forestwide Prescribed Fire Restoration Project on the Humboldt-Toiyabe National Forest. The project calls for logging, mastication (grinding), and burning of trees up to 16 inches in diameter across 5.1 million acres (7,969 square miles) including 3 million acres (4,687 square miles) of federally-protected Roadless Areas that are habitat for bighorn sheep, mule deer, elk, bears, raptors, and birds, especially including the imperiled sage grouse and pinion jay.
The Forest Service plans to cut trees and burn 30,000 acres per year for the next 15 to 20 years. But the agency never told the public where they are planning to conduct these massive deforestation activities. That violates the National Environmental Policy Act, and the law’s entire purpose, which is to provide the public, who own these public lands and forests, the opportunity to review and comment on government projects to ensure the actions won’t harm the environment and people.
Because the agency also did not analyze the past, present, and reasonably foreseeable projects with wildlife impacts overlapping with or adjacent to this massive logging and burning project, it’s in violation of the National Environmental Policy Act.
The overall concept of this project shows the disdain Humboldt-Toiyabe National Forest managers have for the public as well as the animals and plants whose habitats and populations they are legally required to preserve.Instead of open and honest communication with the public, the agency set up a closed-door system in which it alone decides the fate of these beautiful, wild places and the rare species that inhabit them by not telling the public where or when it will extensively cut trees and then burn across the landscape, effectively shutting the public out. The agency cares so little about rare species, ranging from pygmy rabbits to Sierra Nevada red fox, that the highly deficient Environmental Analysis claims when the Forest Service chops down or torches their habitat over the next decades, that the animals can just move away and find somewhere else to live. What they don’t do is reveal where, exactly, all this promised land actually is.
Pinyon jay populations have declined by over 4 million birds in the last 50 years, from 5.1 million to just 755,000 in the last 50 years, making them the fastest declining bird species in North America.
The pinyon jay is a unique, social, bird that travels in large flocks and plays a significant role in maintaining the biodiversity of the West. The jays facilitate piñon pine tree regeneration by extracting and burying the tree’s seeds, commonly known as pine nuts. The birds do not retrieve all their cached seeds, allowing the seeds to germinate and replenish the woodlands. Without pinyon jays, it’s unclear if the piñon pine tree will continue to persist.
Even though pinyon jays have lost 85% of their population in the last 50 years, the Humboldt-Toiyabe National Forest wants to log, masticate and burn approximately 600,000 acres of their habitat, which are pinyon-juniper woodlands. This despite the fact that the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service recently determined the pinyon jays may be warranted for listing as ‘threatened’ under the Endangered Species Act as a result of habitat loss. That’s due to the removal of pinyon and juniper trees by the Forest Service and the Bureau of Land Management — and obviously, this project continues the deforestation.
The Forest Service hopes grass will replace the trees so cows can have more to eat, but most likely the trees will be replaced by an invasive and highly flammable weed that is native to Russia called cheatgrass as has happened throughout the West.
Concurrently, we also just sent a 60-day Notice of Intent to Sue the Humboldt-Toiyabe National Forest and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service for proposing to log and burn the Jarbidge River watershed, which is federally-designated Critical Habitat for the nation’s southernmost population of native bull trout.
The Fish and Wildlife Service notes that high river water temperatures in the Jarbidge River are already a problem for bull trout and this watershed is one of the most susceptible to climate change. The logging and burning will only increase the water temperatures.
Please help us save pinyon-jays, bull trout, and other native species in Nevada and please help Counterpunch keep the public informed about what our federal government is doing.
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