Lawsuit to Stop Pine Mountain Logging Project

In April of 2022, JMP (filing as Earth Island Institute) joined fellow plaintiffs Los Padres ForestWatch, Keep Sespe Wild Committe, American Alpine Club, Center for Biological Diversity, Patagonia Works and Patagonia Works in filing a legal complaint against the Pine Mountain logging project on the Los Padres National Forest ("Los Padres ForestWatch v. United States Forest Service", Case No. 2:22-cv-2781). The project proposes intensive removal of mature and old-growth trees from a rare forest north of Ojai, including several hundred acres of planned logging in a Roadless Area and in Chumash sacred sites, prompting Indegenous Chumash leaders to file declarations in support of the litigation.

The City of Ojai and the County of Ventura have filed their own lawsuits against this logging project, in conjunction with our case. The lawsuit is in early stages currently, and the status will be updated in 2023. JMP's Dr. Chad Hanson wrote an expert declaration for the case, debunking the Forest Service's false attempts to spin the logging as "fuel reduction". 

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The battle we have fought, and are still fighting for the forests is a part of the eternal conflict between right and wrong, and we cannot expect to see the end of it. … So we must count on watching and striving for these trees, and should always be glad to find anything so surely good and noble to strive for.

John Muir, "The National Parks and Forest Reservations" in a speech by John Muir
(Proceedings of the Meeting of the Sierra Club Held November 23, 1895.) Published in Sierra Club Bulletin, (1896)