EUGENE, Ore.— Today, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed a 2022 ruling from the District Court of Oregon that prevents Scott Timber Co. from clearcutting old-growth forest within Oregon’s Elliott State Forest. The court held that the proposed logging of the 355-acre Benson Ridge parcel by the subsidiary of Roseburg Forest Products would harm threatened marbled murrelets in violation of the federal Endangered Species Act.

Conservation groups informed the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service today that they intend to sue over the agency’s denial of Endangered Species Act protections to the imperiled North Oregon Coast population of red tree voles. North Coast voles are threatened by logging and climate change-fueled wildfires.