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Federal court halts massive logging and road building project in Ninemile Valley
Approving a magistrate judge’s recommendations, on Oct. 5, the Montana federal district court ruled for the Alliance for the Wild Rockies and the Flathead-Lolo-Bitterroot Citizen Task Force in their lawsuits opposing the Soldier-Butler timber sale. The court ruled that the Forest Service failed to comply with its own self-imposed rules to protect elk winter range […]
Infrastructure and budget bills contain provisions which will make climate change worse
In so many ways the future hangs in the balance as Congress debates the $3.5 trillion budget reconciliation bill and $1 trillion infrastructure bill. Although encouraging the use of more electric vehicles and increasing solar and wind energy will definitely reduce the amount of carbon we emit into the atmosphere, there are also huge problems […]
Saving the grizzly bears in the Yaak-Cabinet Mountains by lawsuit
Montana’s Governor Greg Gianforte and U.S. Senator Steve Daines recently claimed “frivolous” lawsuits had to be stopped so more logging could occur in our dwindling National Forests. But there’s nothing frivolous about the Alliance for the Wild Rockies filing a 60-day Notice of Intent to Sue the Forest Service to stop the Ripley logging project […]
With all the fish dying statewide, why is killing more trout a top priority for the state?
Apparently The American Fisheries Society doesn’t approve of citizens criticizing the plan by Montana’s Department of Fish, Wildlife and Parks to use rotenone to poison all the fish in 67 miles of streams and lakes in and flowing out of the Scapegoat Wilderness Area. But considering those lakes and streams are just upstream of federally-designated […]
Remove non-native fish without poisoning our streams
Two week ago, Laurie Brown, a licensed nurse practitioner, called the Alliance for the Wild Rockies out of concern for the Game Creek watershed. She lives just south of Jackson Hole, Wyoming, and gets her drinking water from a well adjacent to Game Creek. She recently discovered that the Wyoming Department of Game and Fish […]
Conservation groups continue to fight for bull trout
It’s well known and scientifically documented that bull trout, Montana’s largest native salmonid, require clean, cold, and connected rivers and streams to survive. That’s why, in the midst of a record-breaking hot and dry summer, Alliance for the Wild Rockies, Friends of the Wild Swan, and Save the Bull Trout are challenging the U.S. Fish […]
Big, bad forest clear cutting continues
Clearcuts are not illegal, but they should be. Yet politicians like Sen. Steve Daines and Gov. Greg Gianforte mislead the public by claiming the Forest Service no longer clearcuts. But obviously the Forest Service and timber industry are still clearcutting national forests. Case in point, the Custer Gallatin National Forest just approved – then pulled […]
Biden administration a welcome change in forest service plans
One of the Trump administration’s worst projects, which would have burned a million acres of the Caribou-Targhee National Forest, has been halted in its tracks by Biden’s Forest Service after the Alliance for the Wild Rockies, Native Ecosystems Council, and Yellowstone to Uintas submitted detailed comments opposing this insane idea. The Targhee Prescribed Fire project […]
Aspen tree decline in West due to cattle grazing
The Forest Service has been proposing logging and burning projects to promote the growth of more aspen. But aspen regenerates by putting out shoots, not through seeds, and it’s extensively documented that the major cause of aspen decline in the West is cattle browsing and trampling the young aspen, thus greatly limiting regeneration. Despite the […]
Conservation groups try to keep Castle Mountains pristine
The Castle Mountains are a pristine, island mountain range east of White Sulphur Springs, Montana that, despite the small size of the range, provides an important link in the wildlife corridor connecting Glacier and Yellowstone National Parks. The range gets its name from its “castle turrets,” which are 50-foot high igneous rock spires on the […]
Forest Service fails to consider the impacts of illegal motorized used
The Alliance for the Wild Rockies is challenging the Forest Service’s failure to analyze impacts to threatened grizzly bears from widespread illegal motorized use across Helena-Lewis & Clark National Forest, which stretches 2.8-million acres through central and north-central Montana. Illegal motorized use includes motorized use on “closed” roads by driving around gates or barriers or […]