Southeast Alaska Conservation Council v. United States Forest Service, 857 F.3d 968

Background

Big Thorne: a Forest Service logging project on Prince of Wales Island (Tongass NF) authorizing ~6,200 acres of harvest and >80 miles of roads.
Project reduces old-growth habitat and increases road density; harms Sitka black-tailed deer habitat, which wolves depend on.
Plaintiffs (environmental groups/individuals) sued, alleging NFMA violations for the 2008 Tongass Forest Plan and Big Thorne project; district court granted summary judgment to defendants; plaintiffs appealed.
Forest Plan includes a discretionary "wolf provision" (encourage providing deer habitat “where possible” to maintain sustainable wolf populations) and a "road provision" suggesting low road densities may be necessary.
Relevant regulation (36 C.F.R. § 219.19 (2000)) requiring management to maintain viable populations of native vertebrates was incorporated into the Forest Plan; viability (not sustainability) is the enforceable floor under the majority’s reading.

Issues

Issue	Plaintiff's Argument	Defendant's Argument	Held
Standing to challenge Forest Plan	Plaintiffs who use plan-area lands suffer particularized recreational/esthetic harms traceable to the Plan	Plan-level challenge is programmatic and generalized; lacks particularized injury	Plaintiffs have standing; declarations show concrete, site-specific uses and traceable injury
Does Forest Plan violate NFMA by failing to ensure a "sustainable" wolf population?	Forest Plan’s wolf provision should be read as imposing an obligation to maintain sustainable (not merely viable) wolf populations	"Sustainability" language is discretionary ("where possible"), so no enforceable sustainability mandate	Court: sustainability language is aspirational/discretionary; NFMA does not require the Plan to impose a sustainability standard
Does Forest Plan satisfy NFMA’s viability requirement (36 C.F.R. § 219.19)?	Plan fails to provide enforceable mechanisms or benchmarks to ensure wolf viability across the Tongass	Record of Decision and supporting analysis provide a rational explanation and multi-part strategy (core habitat, harvest limits, deer habitat) that reasonably supports viability	Court: Plan met NFMA; agency supplied a rational connection between facts and conclusions; review is deferential to agency science and policy judgments
Is Big Thorne inconsistent with the Forest Plan (NFMA §1604(i))?	Big Thorne will further reduce deer habitat and raise road density; plan’s aspirational sustainability references show agency intended higher protections	Big Thorne was evaluated for consistency; Forest Service relied on viability standard and tradeoffs (jobs vs. wolves); many plan lands already below sustainability thresholds	Court: Big Thorne is consistent with the Plan; Forest Service permissibly prioritized multiple-use goals and complied with its viability-focused obligations

Key Cases Cited

Summers v. Earth Island Inst., 555 U.S. 488 (standing for environmental plaintiffs requires particularized injury)
Lands Council v. McNair, 537 F.3d 981 (9th Cir.) (courts may not demand particular types of proof for species protection; defer to agency rationale)
Cottonwood Envtl. Law Ctr. v. U.S. Forest Serv., 789 F.3d 1075 (programmatic decision standing when harm is fairly traceable)
Motor Vehicle Mfrs. Ass’n v. State Farm Mut. Auto. Ins. Co., 463 U.S. 29 (arbitrary-and-capricious review requires reasoned explanation and rational connection)
Heckler v. Chaney, 470 U.S. 821 (agency prosecutorial or discretionary decisions generally unreviewable)
Inland Empire Pub. Lands Council v. U.S. Forest Serv., 88 F.3d 754 (deference to agency on scientific methodology and not requiring specific population-size metrics)
Or. Nat. Res. Council Fund v. Brong, 492 F.3d 1120 (agency must supply a rational connection between facts found and conclusions made)
Ecology Ctr. v. Castaneda, 574 F.3d 652 (apply superseded regulation only to extent incorporated into plan)