NEWS RELEASE: Lawsuit Challenges New U.S. Forest Service Plan for Nez Perce-Clearwater Forests
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: Tuesday, October 20, 2026
Contacts:
Brad Smith, Idaho Conservation League, Interim Executive Director, (208) 345-6933 x 403
Hayley Newman, Great Burn Conservation Alliance, Executive Director, (406) 240-9901
Frank Szollosi, Montana Wildlife Federation, Executive Director, (406) 417-9909
Susan Jane Brown, Silvix Resources, Principal and Chief Legal Counsel, (503) 680-5513
Bryan Hurlbutt, Advocates for the West, Staff Attorney, (208) 730-6961
Lawsuit Challenges New U.S. Forest Service Plan for Nez Perce-Clearwater Forests
Agency failed to provide adequate protections to safeguard wolverines, mountain goats, Great Burn ecosystem
Kamiah, ID — A coalition of three conservation groups sued the U.S. Forest Service today for its approval of the Revised Land Management Plan for the Nez Perce-Clearwater National Forests, the overarching document that guides management of approximately 4 million acres of National Forest land in North Central Idaho. Plaintiffs Idaho Conservation League, Great Burn Conservation Alliance, and Montana Wildlife Federation argue that the agency failed to provide adequate protections to safeguard wolverines, mountain goats, and the Great Burn ecosystem.
Adopted in early 2025, the plan replaces two separate management plans for the Clearwater and Nez Perce National Forests created in the 1980s, well before the two Forests were consolidated. The conservation groups’ central claim concerns changes to the boundaries of the Great Burn Recommended Wilderness Area (RWA). The agency shrank the Great Burn RWA by approximately 3,700 acres overall and removed two large blocks on the north and south ends of the RWA that are critical to wildlife, while adding new acreage on the west side. These changes opened once-closed areas to winter motorized use.
The high-elevation areas removed on the north and south ends of the Great Burn are valuable habitat for wolverines and mountain goats, species that are highly sensitive to human disturbance during critical winter months. Rather than use the best available scientific information to conserve mountain goats and wolverines and protect the Great Burn from known and escalating threats such as climate change and motorized winter recreation, the Forest Service shirked its procedural legal obligations, the conservation organizations allege, and through these boundary manipulations reduced conservation outcomes for mountain goats, wolverines, and the Great Burn.
“For decades, the Great Burn Conservation Alliance has worked to protect the wild lands and wildlife of the Northern Bitterroot Mountains,” said Hayley Newman, Executive Director of the Great Burn Conservation Alliance. “The Great Burn’s value extends far beyond any single boundary on a map, and protecting it means conserving the connected habitats wildlife depend on to survive, including the high-elevation areas critical to mountain goats and wolverines. By removing protections for these important areas, this plan moves us in the wrong direction at a time when these species and the landscapes they depend on need stronger protections.”
For over a decade, the Forest Service failed to enforce restrictions on over-snow vehicle access to the Great Burn, allowing snowmobile users to flout the closure despite impacts to wildlife. The Forest Service chose to shift protected-area boundaries to accommodate this illegal motorized recreation rather than fulfill the agency’s obligations to conserve wildlife. The Great Burn RWA extends into Montana and onto the Lolo National Forest, and the conservation organizations note in their suit that wildlife does not recognize state or Forest boundaries.
“Our members hunt, fish, and explore the Great Burn, and they expect the rules protecting it to mean something,” said Frank Szollosi, Executive Director of Montana Wildlife Federation. “Snowmobiles have entered closed areas for years. Now the Forest Service has redrawn the recommended wilderness boundary to accommodate that use. That rewards rule-breaking, undermines the agency’s own authority, and puts critical wildlife and wild country at risk.”
The Great Burn RWA straddles approximately 50 miles along the Idaho and Montana state line in the Northern Bitterroot Mountains. It offers crucial habitat connectivity for wildlife, linking landscapes and species within the Forest and providing important wildlife passage between Central Idaho’s wildlands and the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem on one side, and on the other the Crown of the Continent Ecosystem, a 10-million-acre region in the Northern Rocky Mountains where Montana, Alberta, and British Columbia meet, and the Selkirk-Cabinet-Yaak Ecosystems. The Great Burn ecosystem contains specialized habitat for a range of species including mountain goats and wolverines, serves as an important corridor for wildlife migration along the Bitterroot Divide, and offers outstanding opportunities for quiet recreation in a wild, undeveloped landscape.
“Like a link in a chain, the Great Burn is a critical part of a wildlife corridor along the Idaho-Montana border,” said Brad Smith, Interim Executive Director of the Idaho Conservation League. “This plan breaks that link, putting already vulnerable wolverine and mountain goat populations at greater risk.”
“The Forest Service has a clear legal obligation to build forest plans to conserve sensitive wildlife like mountain goats and wolverine, and to protect wild, intact landscapes like the Great Burn where these species live from stressors such as winter motorized recreation and climate change,” said Susan Jane Brown, attorney with Silvix Resources and lead counsel for the conservation groups. “Although the agency had before it compelling scientific justification for doing just that in the Revised Nez Perce-Clearwater Plan, the Forest Service failed in its responsibility to steward these resources for present and future generations.”
The Lolo National Forest is currently revising its own Forest Plan. Changes to the boundaries of the Great Burn on the Idaho side could influence decisions about the boundaries of the Montana side of the Great Burn RWA.
“At a time when the Great Burn and its wildlife need our help more than ever, the Forest Service is catering to a single user group and rolling back protections that have been in place for nearly 40 years,” said Bryan Hurlbutt, staff attorney at Advocates for the West and local counsel for the conservation groups. “Our public lands deserve better.”
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Idaho Conservation League: ICL’s mission is to create a conservation community and pragmatic, enduring solutions that protect and restore the air you breathe, the water you drink, and the land and wildlife you love. www.idahoconservation.org
Great Burn Conservation Alliance: The Great Burn Conservation Alliance fosters the connection between people and place to further conservation and stewardship in the Great Burn ecosystem. www.greatburn.org
Montana Wildlife Federation: Celebrating the 90-year mission of the Montana Wildlife Federation working to protect Montana’s fish and wildlife, public lands, clean waters, and fair chase hunting and fishing heritage. www.montanawildlife.org
Silvix Resources: Silvix Resources is a non-profit environmental law firm with more than 20 years of experience in federal forest law, policy, and collaboration with a mission of using those tools to advance the conservation, restoration, and stewardship of western public lands. www.silvixresources.org
Advocates for the West: Advocates for the West is a non-profit, public interest environmental law firm headquartered in Boise, Idaho, that works to defend public lands, water, fish, and wildlife throughout the American West. www.advocateswest.org
