The Alliance Blog
Learn about our ongoing work and success in holding our government agencies accountable to the laws that protect our ecosystems and species from habitat destruction caused by extractive industries.
Environmental Groups Save Ashley National Forest Roadless Areas from Bulldozers and Chainsaws
Photo: USFS The great news is the Ashley National Forest has been saved from a "landscape scale" deforestation plan in which the Forest Service planned to bulldoze in skid trails to log and burn up to 147,000 acres (230 square miles!) of Inventoried...
Court Halts Massive Illegal Old Growth Logging Project in Montana’s Little Belt Mountains
Photo: USFS The Alliance for the Wild Rockies and Native Ecosystems Council filed their lawsuit to stop the Horsefly project in the Helena-Lewis and Clark National Forest in April 2021. The project called for cutting and burning trees on 10,343 acres, which is more...
Forest Service must follow the law like everyone else
Photo: Ryan Hagerty USFWS A recent column by the Anaconda Sportsmen Club disparaged the Alliance for the Wild Rockies for challenging the illegal Pintler Face logging project in southwest Montana in federal court. What they failed to disclose to you is that federal...
Alliance says “Stop the Chop” in Colville National Forest
Photo: USFWS Having lost so many times in court because they keep breaking the law, the Forest Service has now turned to what are called "landscape scale treatments" where they refuse to tell the public how, when, and where they are going to clearcut and bulldoze new...
Alliance Stops 100 Miles of Roads and 5,000 Acres of Clearcuts on Montana Public Lands
Big Belt mountains looking northeast from just outside Helena, Montana. Photo: Montanabw, CC BY-SA 3.0. The Alliance for the Wild Rockies and its co-Plaintiff, Native Ecosystems Council, have prevailed in stopping the Middleman project in Montana’s Big Belt Mountains,...
Alliance asks Forest Service to Close Bison Hunting Area Next to Yellowstone National Park Before Someone Gets Killed
Image by Daniel Lloyd Blunk-Fernández Pointing to the danger to residents, landowners, other hunters and the public during the bison hunt/cull this year, the Alliance for the Wild Rockies recently sent a letter to Mary Erickson, Supervisor of the Custer Gallatin...
Sage Grouse “collaborative conservation effort” an on-going disaster
The numbers don't lie -- and the sage grouse "collaborative conservation effort" is a total and on-going failure. There were 16 million Greater Sage Grouse before Europeans arrived and began the destruction of the "sagebrush sea" in the Great Plains. The iconic birds...
Alliance Files Lawsuit to Restore Endangered Species Act Protections for Wolves
Let's get right to the point, the end goal of the wolf 'management plans' in Montana, Idaho and Wyoming is to once again exterminate them from the Northern Rockies. They think the only good wolf is a dead wolf. Wolves need your help. The wolf slaughter is out of...
Massive “Pintler Face” logging and burning project on Beaverhead-Deerlodge National Forest challenged in federal court
Photo:Lisa Hupp/USFWS Click here to read the complaint filed in Federal Court. It’s absolutely one of the worst places in the state for clearcuts. For the Forest Service to propose a project like this in essential habitat for lynx, grizzly bear, and wolverine -- which...
Taking on the Forest Service in Federal Court
Bull trout. Image: US Fish and Wildlife Service Forest Service plan to log old growth and bulldoze logging roads in bull trout critical habitat challenged in federal court There’s so much wrong with this project, so many illegalities, omissions, and disregard for the...
Top Ten Victories by the Alliance for the Wild Rockies in 2023
Photo: Glen Phillips Thank you all for helping us make a difference this year. Here's to more in 2024! 1) Wolverines listed as “threatened” under Endangered Species Act after 20-year conservation effort. 2) Federal Court - Feds Must Proceed with Grizzly Bear Recovery...
Great News! The Feds Must Proceed with Grizzly Bear Recovery in the Bitterroot Mountains Wilderness
Photo: Steve Hillebrand/USFWS Recovery of endangered grizzly bears in the lower 48 states hinges on critical genetic connectivity between the Greater Yellowstone and Northern Continental grizzlies provided by the Bitterroot Mountains. Located on the border of central...
For Bioregional Cooperation: an Interview With Mike Garrity of Alliance for the Wild Rockies
Pilot Peak, Beartooth Range, Greater Yellowstone. Photo: Jeffrey St. Clair. BY MICHELLE RENEE MATISONS If ever there is a time for cooperative ecological action it is now, and there are plenty of opportunities for engagement in the West. The Rocky Mountain system/...
U.S. Forest Service logging makes a mockery of Biden’s climate pledge
Once again, the Alliance for the Wild Rockies, Center on Biological Diversity and Council on Wildlife and Fish are challenging the Biden administration’s Forest Service on yet another massive clearcutting. This time it’s the South Plateau Project, right on the border...
Alliance for Wild Rockies halts degradation of Red Rock Lakes Wilderness
Photo: George Jordan, USFWS In what was undoubtedly one of the most bizarre attempts to “save” a handful of lake grayling, Biden’s U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Montana’s Department of Fish, Wildlife and Parks, and Montana Trout Unlimited tried to throw the...
Alliance Stops Massive Logging Project in Lynx and Grizzly Habitat
It’s absolutely one of the worst places in the country for clearcuts. So we’re thrilled that the Court agreed with us and halted the logging project. But going even further, the Court’s Order vacated the Forest Service’s approval of this logging and road-building...
Alliance for the Wild Rockies stops Cabinet-Yaak grizzly bear habitat destruction
Without question, the Cabinet-Yaak grizzly bears are the most isolated and threatened population in Montana. The bad news is that this already small population is going downhill so fast it’s threatened with irreversible inbreeding. The good news is the Alliance for...
Alliance wins court challenge against widespread illegal motorized use on National Forests
Photo: Park Service For decades the Forest Service has gotten away with calling hundreds, if not thousands, of roads on national forests “closed” when they’re not. As is well known and documented, illegal use of the roads continues when people drive around the fences,...
Federal Court Halts Pipeline Construction in Red Rock Lakes Wilderness
Photo: George Jordan, USFWS The Alliance for the Wild Rockies is thrilled to announce the U.S. District Court granted our request for a Preliminary Injunction to immediately stop the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s construction of a permanent water pipeline in the...
Federal Court Halts Illegal Logging to Save Endangered Grizzly Bears in NW Montana
Photo: Glen Phillips Thanks to a successful court challenge by the Alliance for the Wild Rockies, over 10,000 acres of grizzly bear habitat in northwestern Montana will not be decimated by commercial logging. In late June, our lawsuit in a federal district court in...
Alliance for the Wild Rockies challenges massive clearcut and burning project near Lake Pend Oreille in northern Idaho
Remember when the Forest Service bluffed the public and naive environmental groups saying the agency never approved clearcuts larger than 20 acres? No longer! The latest Buckskin-Saddle project in northern Idaho includes 30 square miles of logging with more than half...
AWR and Allies Win Lawsuit Over Grazing Project That Would Kill 72 Yellowstone Grizzly Bears
Yellowstone grizzly. Photo: National Park Service. The Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled in favor of the Alliance for the Wild Rockies, Western Watershed Project and Yellowstone to Uintas Coalition on May 25th on our lawsuit over livestock grazing on 267 square...
Northern Rockies Ecosystem Protection Act: Last Best Chance for the Last Best Place
Photo: Glenn Phillips Montana and the Northern Rockies are facing an unprecedented wave of development that is fracturing wildlife habitat, threatening water quality, and seeing vastly increased logging of our national forests under the guise of “restoration” and...
Older forests on the Kootenai National Forest are nature’s best climate solution
Old multistory forest slated for phased clearcut. Logging unit 72, Kootenai National Forest. Photo credit: Yaak Valley Forest Council By Dominick A. DellaSala, Ph. D, Chief Scientist at Wild Heritage For four decades, I have been crisscrossing the globe inventorying...
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