Court Voids North Carolina National Forest Plan for Violating Endangered Species

[Woolly Bugger]

In a major victory for communities and wildlife in North Carolina, a court has ruled that federal agencies violated the Endangered Species Act by relying on a faulty analysis when they created the controversial Nantahala-Pisgah Forest Plan. The court's Tuesday decision prohibits the U.S. Forest Service from relying on the plan, which would have quintupled logging in the forests.

"This is a massive win for wildlife and for the millions of people who visit these cherished forests," said Will Harlan, Southeast Director at the Center for Biological Diversity. "The Forest Service's aggressive and illegal logging plans completely ignored science and the public, who overwhelmingly support protecting these forests. This ruling is a dagger to the destructive forest plan and a lifeline for wildlife and communities. The Pisgah and Nantahala are two of the most popular and biologically diverse forests in the country, and they are worth far more standing than cut down."

In 2024 conservation groups sued the Forest Service and U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service over the revised forest plan, which proposed to dramatically increase logging, including in habitat for endangered forest bats. In Tuesday's ruling the U.S. District Court for the Western District of North Carolina found that the agencies relied on incomplete and inaccurate information to downplay the plan's harm to endangered species.

The court ruled that the agencies' biological opinion was clearly flawed, writing in its decision that the agencies' conclusions were "unexplained," "unsupported," "deficient," and "of almost no value." The court also found that since the biological opinion is unlawful, the forest plan is void until the agencies redo their analysis.

https://biologicaldiversity.org/w/news/press-releases/court-voids-north-carolina-national-forest-plan-for-violating-endangered-species-act-2026-04-01/