## Facts

- The U.S. Forest Service approved seven timber sales in Georgia’s Chattahoochee National Forest involving logging, clearcutting, and related road construction.
- The projects covered roughly 2,000 acres and included construction of approximately 18 miles of roads, with projected sediment discharge into nearby waterways.
- The Forest Service managed the forest under a Land and Resource Management Plan adopted in 1985 and amended in 1989, which required site-specific analysis of project effects on wildlife and plant species before timber sales.
- Environmental organizations challenged the approvals under the Administrative Procedure Act (APA), alleging violations of the National Forest Management Act (NFMA) and implementing regulations, including requirements concerning management indicator species (MIS) and proposed, endangered, threatened, and sensitive (PETS) species.
- Plaintiffs asserted the Forest Service unlawfully relied on habitat and qualitative information instead of collecting and using quantitative population inventory/monitoring data for MIS and PETS species.
- The district court granted summary judgment to the Forest Service and intervening timber companies, and plaintiffs appealed.

## Issues

1. Whether NFMA regulations (including 36 C.F.R. §§ 219.19 and 219.26) and the forest plan required the Forest Service to collect and consider quantitative population data for MIS and PETS species before approving the timber sales.
2. Whether a site-specific APA challenge to project approvals may enforce NFMA planning regulations at the timber-sale level.
3. Whether the Forest Service’s interpretation permitting reliance on habitat proxies rather than population monitoring data was entitled to deference.

## Decision

- The Eleventh Circuit reversed the grant of summary judgment for the Forest Service and intervenors and remanded.
- The court held that the NFMA regulations and the forest plan imposed enforceable duties, at least for MIS, to obtain and consider population monitoring data before authorizing the sales.
- The court rejected the argument that such claims could be brought only at the forest-plan level and held that site-specific project decisions are reviewable under the APA for compliance with NFMA regulations and the governing plan.
- The court declined to defer to an agency reading that conflicted with mandatory regulatory language requiring monitoring of MIS population trends and relating those trends to habitat changes.
- Because the agency approved the sales without the required population data, the approvals were not in accordance with law under the APA.

## Legal Principles

- Site-specific national forest project approvals implementing a forest plan are reviewable under the APA for compliance with NFMA regulations and the plan’s requirements.
- 36 C.F.R. § 219.19’s requirement that MIS population trends “will be monitored” imposes a mandatory obligation to obtain and use population trend information, not merely habitat descriptions.
- Regulatory and plan provisions concerning species diversity and viability may require data adequate to support conclusions about effects on sensitive and indicator species in the project area.
- Judicial deference to an agency’s interpretation of its regulations does not apply where the interpretation conflicts with unambiguous regulatory text or reads mandatory requirements out of the rule.
- An agency action is unlawful under the APA when it proceeds without meeting regulatory and plan-based prerequisites that condition project approval.

## Conclusion

The Eleventh Circuit held that the Forest Service could not approve the challenged timber sales without first complying with NFMA regulations and the forest plan requiring population monitoring and analysis for MIS (and related species-viability assessments), and it remanded for further proceedings consistent with those obligations.


Sierra Club v. Martin, 168 F.3d 1 (11th Cir. 1999)