Carpenter

Two environmental organizations, The Wilderness Society and Great Old Broads for Wilderness, appeal the denial of their motion to intervene as of right in a suit between the United States, Elko County, Nevada, and a private defendant over the status of a road on U.S. .Forest Service land. The appellants sought to intervene to object to a proposed settlement agreement, and they filed their intervention petition soon after the proposed agreement was made public on March 2, 2001. The district court denied the motion on timeliness grounds because the suit had been pending for more than eighteen months. We have jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. § 1291 . Southwest Ctr. for Biological Diversity v. Berg, 268 F.3d 810 , 817 (9th Cir.2001). We now reverse, because the interveners acted promptly after they had notice that the government may not have adequately represented their interests in negotiating the settlement, and they were entitled to rely on the presumption of adequate representation by the government prior to that time. See, e.g., Forest Conservation Council v. U.S. Forest Svc., 66 F.3d 1489 , 1499 (9th Cir.1995).

In October 1999, the Forest Service sued representatives of a…