## Facts

- Environmental groups challenged federal timber sales affecting old-growth habitat used by the northern spotted owl in national forests in Washington, Oregon, and northern California.
- The court had previously ruled (on summary judgment) that the Forest Service’s logging program violated the National Forest Management Act (NFMA) because it lacked standards and guidelines required by regulation to ensure a viable owl population.
- After that liability ruling, plaintiffs sought a permanent injunction to stop additional timber sales in further owl habitat until the Forest Service achieved NFMA compliance.
- The Forest Service and timber-industry intervenors urged a narrower injunction permitting sales if consistent with the Interagency Scientific Committee (ISC) Report’s recommendations.
- Evidence showed additional logging would permanently eliminate old-growth habitat, with an estimated 66,000 acres at risk, and could push the owl population beyond recovery.
- The court found the Forest Service had delayed producing lawful, enforceable planning measures despite statutory and judicial pressure and continued pursuing habitat-affecting sales.

## Issues

1. Whether the Forest Service could proceed with further logging in northern spotted owl habitat without first adopting NFMA-compliant standards and guidelines ensuring species viability.
2. Whether equitable relief should broadly bar additional timber sales in owl habitat pending NFMA compliance, or instead allow sales conditioned on consistency with the ISC Report.
3. How irreparable harm, balance of hardships, and the public interest apply where habitat destruction and an ongoing NFMA violation are shown.

## Decision

- The court reaffirmed its prior determination that the Forest Service’s proposed logging in owl habitat was unlawful under NFMA absent required standards and guidelines to maintain a viable owl population.
- The court issued a permanent injunction prohibiting the Forest Service from selling logging rights in additional northern spotted owl habitat areas until NFMA compliance was achieved through adoption of adequate standards and guidelines.
- The court rejected the narrower ISC-based alternative, finding it did not remedy the statutory violation and did not sufficiently protect against irreparable harm.
- The court found irreparable harm from the irreversible loss of old-growth ecosystem and the risk of pushing the species beyond recovery; economic harms, though substantial, were treated as comparatively temporary.
- The court concluded the public interest favored enforcement of environmental statutes and conservation of irreplaceable resources over short-term timber harvest objectives.

## Legal Principles

- Under NFMA and its implementing regulations, forest planning must include enforceable standards and guidelines designed to ensure viable populations of native vertebrate species; agency action inconsistent with that requirement is unlawful.
- Permanent loss of old-growth habitat and heightened extinction risk constitute irreparable environmental harm supporting injunctive relief.
- In environmental cases, the public interest strongly favors statutory compliance, and courts may enjoin otherwise permitted economic activity to prevent irreversible resource loss while an agency remains in violation.
- Scientific recommendations may inform interim management, but they do not substitute for the agency’s duty to adopt binding, NFMA-compliant planning measures.

## Conclusion

The court permanently enjoined additional timber sales in northern spotted owl habitat because the Forest Service had not adopted NFMA-required standards and guidelines to assure species viability, and continued logging posed irreversible habitat loss and serious risk to the owl population that outweighed temporary economic disruption.


Seattle Audubon Soc’y v. Evans, 771 F. Supp. 1081 (W.D. Wash. 1991)