Council

By Per Curiam Opinion; Dissent by Judge D.W. NELSON.

OVERVIEW

Appellants Oregon Natural Resources Council (“ONRC”) and other environmental groups filed this action against the United States Forest Service, alleging that the Forest Service failed to comply with the National Forest Management Act (“NFMA”) and the National Environmental Policy Act (“NEPA”) in developing and amending the Winema National Forest Land and Resource Management Plan (“LRMP” or “Forest Plan”). The ONRC contends that: 1) the Forest Plan fails to insure the viability of sensitive wildlife species; 2) in developing the Forest Plan, the Forest Service relied on an outdated forest inventory and failed to respond to contrary scientific opinion; 3) the Forest Service should have prepared a supplemental Environmental Impact Statement (“EIS”) to assess the environmental implications of an old growth inventory that was completed after the LRMP was adopted; and 4) the Forest Service should have prepared an EIS when the LRMP was amended. The district court granted summary judgment in favor of the defendants. We affirm the district court’s decision.

FACTUAL AND PROCEDURAL BACKGROUND

In this suit, the ONRC challenges…

dissenting:

I respectfully dissent from section II.A of the panel’s opinion. I believe that the EIS for the Winema LRMP was inadequate under NEPA.

The Forest Service itself has emphasized that considering quantity of old growth alone is not sufficient for evaluating species viability and that it is important to consider the size, configuration, and connectivity of old growth in the forest planning process. In a memorandum to Forest Supervisors in Region 6 (the region in which the Winema National Forest is located) which was “intended to help [the Supervisors] focus the diversity discussion in [their] Final Forest Plan and Environmental Impact Statement,” the Regional Forester instructed that “[f]or plant associations and serai stages that are of *531 concern, e.g. old growth, hardwood associations, etc., describe the following attributes: [distribution across the forest; [s]pacing within and across watersheds; [p]ateh sizes; [p]atch shapes; [connections between patches.” Similarly, in the Regional Guide (from which the MMRs in the Winema Forest Plan are drawn), the Forest Service stated that:

Forest Service biologists explain that the configuration and connectivity of old…