The U.S. Forest Service (USFS) has withdrawn a plan to authorize 147,000 acres of logging in Utah’s Ashley National Forest following a lawsuit by environmental groups.
The agency authorized the Aspen Project in October 2023, which environmentalists said would have destroyed habitat for bighorn sheep, deer, elk, bears and raptors.
The project would have logged conifers and aspens and prescribed burns inside designated areas. “We hope the Forest Service will now work with us to restore aspen by reducing cattle grazing, which is the cause of the decline of aspen stands,” said Mike Garrity, executive director of the Alliance for the Wild Rockies, in a statement.
