Vital to the Dolores River Watershed, thousands of mature ponderosa pines have been protected from logging north of Dolores under a new agreement between the U.S. Forest Service and two environmental groups.
The tall-standing, old guardians of the forest could now live on for years to come.
The legal settlement was reached after the Durango-based San Juan Citizens Alliance and the Center for Biological Diversity sued the U.S. Forest Service in June 2023 for the federal agency’s 23,000-acre logging plan, along with allegations that environmental law was being violated in a disregard for old-growth trees. Under the agreement, finalized in the U.S. District Court of Colorado last Thursday, the oldest 10% of pines originally unprotected in the San Juan National Forest Dolores Ranger District are now bestowed with a shield.
“Large, mature trees are critical for climate resilience, habitat and forest health,” John Rader, public lands program director for the San Juan Citizens Alliance, said in a news release. “We are pleased to reach a commonsense agreement that helps safeguard our forests from climate change and biodiversity loss.”
The agreement “sets the stage for nurturing more mature and old-growth forests for future generations,” added Alli Henderson, southern Rockies director for the Center for Biological Diversity.
The agreement doesn’t halt logging entirely, but instead cuts it short.
The Forest Service’s logging plan, known as the Salter Timber Project, is being carried out in the name of ecological causes. Not only is the project meant to thin out fuels for wildfire risk mitigation, but it is also intended to curb two tree-killing pests: mountain pine bark beetle and parasitic mistletoe.
As a result, some mature pines impacted by the destructive insect and life-sucking plant will still be logged, along with young and moderately aged trees.
Additionally, Forest Service officials must also meet with representatives of the Dolores Watershed Collaborative, a network of conservation stakeholders, before and after logging, according to the settlement.
“From the outset, we were never opposed to the project generally,” Rader told The Journal in an interview.
Rader said that the Forest Service’s intentions to deal with pests and reduce wildfire risk seemed appropriate.
After a lengthy process of planning, presentations, public input and environmental assessment to top it all off, the Dolores Ranger District gave a preliminary go-ahead for the Salter Timber Project in June 2021.
Over 100 public comments submitted at the time led to a shift in timber plans, keeping chain saws and logging trucks from overly impeding forest recreation.
By November 2022, the Forest Service concluded that there would be no environmental impact, and months later, in April 2023, awarded the project’s first timber contract.
But during the process, a need to look out for the mature trees was voiced, Rader said.
As the project continued ahead and logging was set to begin, the San Juan Citizens Alliance sat down with the Forest Service in 2023 to address the concerns, Rader told The Journal at the time.
“Those issues were never really addressed,” said Rader. “Unfortunately that led to litigation.”
The original suit, filed in U.S. District Court in Denver in June 2023, alleged that U.S. Forest Service had violated the National Environmental Policy Act and the National Forest Management Act.
“San Juan National Forest officials should have protected these last bastions of old, healthy forests, but instead they left the door open to destroying them,” Ted Zukoski, a senior attorney at the Center for Biological Diversity, said in a news release during that time.
But the settlement, reached two years from the date the complaint was filed, makes such procedural allegations invalid, and both groups instead opted for a shared agreement.
The San Juan National Forest Service Dolores Ranger District did not respond to requests for comment.
According to Rader, the Forest Service waited to solicit timber contracts until an agreement was finalized.
No injunction had been ordered halting the Forest Service from beginning the logging, he said.
Now that an agreement has been reached, logging can be expected to proceed.
Treatment blocks under the Salter Timber Project include six areas: Turkey, House Creek, Plateau Creek, Carlyle, Salter and Boggy Draw, with priority going to the latter three spots, according to the settlement.
With recent efforts by the federal administration to dismantle some protections for public lands, Rader said that the agreement feels “like a victory for conservation.”
“We’re happy we could come to a substantive agreement that actually preserves some of the oldest and largest trees in the Forest Service.”
