On Saturday, June 14, Forest Management Analyst Rocky Smith, Wildlife Habitat Conservationist Andrew Rothman (formerly with WildEarth Guardians), mountain lion expert David Neils, and Eco-Integrity Alliance’s Josh Schlossberg led a hike to the biggest logging project in recent Colorado history.
U.S. Forest Service’s “Lower North South Vegetation Management” in the Pike-San Isabel National Forest about 30 miles south of Denver (outside Sedalia) involves a mind-boggling 116,000 acres of aggressive logging—18,500 of which would occur in protected Roadless Areas—including clearcuts up to forty acres in size.
This carbon-storing, biodiverse forest is crucial habitat for wildlife listed under the Endangered Species Act, including the Mexican spotted owl, Pawnee montane skipper, Preble’s meadow jumping mouse, tri-colored bat, and Canada lynx.
Over about 2.5 hours, hikers had the option of two separate hikes, one focusing on forest and wildfire ecology and another on predator habitat and behavior. Each traversed through an ecologically important montane ecosystem—including mature and old-growth—currently threatened by Colorado’s biggest and most destructive logging sale of the century.
“Lower North South Vegetation Management” is part of a questionable “emergency action” under which the Department of Agriculture has placed 112 million acres—59% of all National Forests—on the chopping block at the behest of the Trump administration’s executive order for “Immediate Expansion of American Timber Production.”
Citizens are asking U.S. Representative Brittany Pettersen (in whose district much of the project lies) to make it clear to the U.S. Forest Service, media, and American people that protecting public lands–not increasing logging–is the only way to address the worsening climate and biodiversity crisis.
Thus far, despite multiple press releases since 2023, not a single media outlet in Colorado has mentioned the existence of the “Lower North South” project, with only a handful citizens even aware of the project. Documents recently obtained in a CORA request (and soon to be released) show nearly two dozen government agencies and other entities in Colorado coordinating to tell reporters that any critique of “fuel reduction” is “misinformation” in an attempt to defame and destroy the credibility of ecological advocates and concerned citizens while privately admitting to the abundant science contesting the efficacy of cutting forests to protect communities from wildfire.
Eco-Integrity Alliance 