Opinion ID: 178946
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Purported species viability requirements

Text: As we stated in Ecology Center v. Castaneda, The National Forest Management Act... provides both procedural and substantive requirements. Procedurally, it requires the Forest Service to develop and maintain forest resource management plans. After a forest plan is developed, all subsequent agency action ... must comply with NFMA and the governing forest plan. Substantively, NFMA requires that forest plans provide for diversity of plant and animal communities based on the suitability and capability of the specific land area. 574 F.3d 652, 656 (9th Cir.2009) (citations omitted). However, we also explained that the Forest Service's 1982 rule which required the Forest Service manage fish and wildlife habitat to maintain viable populations of existing native and desired non-native vertebrate species was partially superceded in 2000 (the 2000 Rule). Id. at 657. As we stated, [t]he requirements of the superceded 1982 Rule apply only to the extent they were incorporated into the Forest Plan.  Id. at 657. (emphasis added). Similarly, in McNair, we stated that [t]he NFMA unquestionably requires the Forest Service to provide for diversity of plant and animal communities... in order to meet overall multiple-use objectives. 537 F.3d at 992 (quotation marks omitted). But emphasizing the inherent flexibility of the NFMA, we pointed out that the NFMA does not specify precisely how the Forest Service must demonstrate that it has met the objectives of the pertinent forest plan. Id. As we said, as non-scientists, we decline to impose bright-line rules on the Forest Service regarding particular means that it must take in every case to show us that it has met the NFMA's requirements. Rather, we hold that the Forest Service must support its conclusions that a project meets the requirements of the NFMA and relevant Forest Plan with studies that the agency, in its expertise, deems reliable. The Forest Service must explain the conclusions it has drawn from its chosen methodology, and the reasons it considers the underlying evidence to be reliable. We will conclude that the Forest Service acts arbitrarily and capriciously only when the record plainly demonstrates that the Forest Service made a clear error in judgment in concluding that a project meets the requirements of the NFMA and relevant Forest Plan. Id. at 993-94 (emphasis added). In contrast to the case at hand, the Forest Plan at issue in McNair contained specific provisions regarding wildlife viability. Id. at 989 (The ... Forest Plan requires the Forest Service to manage the habitat of species listed in the Regional Sensitive Species List to prevent further declines in populations which could lead to federal listing under the Endangered Species Act.) (alteration and quotation marks omitted). Even so, neither the NFMA nor the ... Forest Plan require the Forest Service to improve a species' habitat to prove that it is maintaining wildlife viability. Id. at 995. Further, Congress has consistently acknowledged that the Forest Service must balance competing demands in managing National Forest System lands. Indeed, ... it has never been the case that the national forests were to be set aside for non-use ... Congress' current vision of national forest uses ... states that it is the policy of the Congress that the national forests are established and shall be administered for outdoor recreation, range, timber, watershed, and wildlife and fish purposes. Id. at 990 (emphasis added, alteration, citations and quotation marks omitted). Here, the Plumas National Forest Plan was amended in 2004 and 2007. Earth Island cites to language in the 2004 amendment indicating that the forest management approach chosen will provide the fish and wildlife habitat and other ecological conditions necessary to maintain well-distributed viable populations of vertebrate species in the planning area, and maintain the diversity of plants and animals. Earth Island contends that this shows that the Forest Service was to ensure the viability of the woodpecker. This statement does not clearly stand for this proposition. First, it could be read to mean that the Service was to ensure the distribution of the species, especially when read in combination with the most recent amendment which also calls for distribution, but not viability analyses. Second, the requirement pertains to the planning area, not the project area at issue in this case. As shown below, the Forest Service did, in fact, find that there would be no change in the distribution of the woodpeckers at the Sierra Nevada level. Similarly, the 2007 amendment only requires  [d]istribution population monitoring [to] track changes in the distribution of each MIS at the Sierra Nevada scale by monitoring the changes in the presence of the species across a number of sample locations, but [t]he sole MIS requirement that is applied at the project-level is the assessment of habitat for MIS. Further, there are no monitoring requirements for MIS at the project level.  (Emphasis added). The record shows that the Forest Service satisfied the requirement to assess MIS habitat in the project area. For example, in the Management Indicator Species Report for the Moonlight-Wheeler project, the Forest Service acknowledged the importance of snag forest to the woodpecker, estimated post-fire snag forest density in the proposed project area, analyzed the direct, indirect and cumulative effects of logging on the habitat under the five proposed alternatives. The Forest Service concluded that [a]ll action alternatives, combined with ongoing and planned fire-killed tree removal projects, leave more area unharvested than harvested within the analysis area.... Leaving the majority of the burn in an unharvested condition maintains an important component of biological diversity [for] all the unique plants and animals that depend on those first few years of natural (postfire) succession. This includes the [woodpecker]. The RFEIS similarly analyzed the effects of the proposed project on the woodpecker's habitat needs at the project level in a thorough manner. As the district court noted, the [Forest Service] analyzed the amount of suitable habitat that would be lost in the analysis area due to salvage logging, and concluded that 62% of suitable habitat created by the Moonlight and Wheeler fires, or 20,172 acres, would remain untreated, and thus still support an upward trend in BBWO [black-backed woodpecker] population. Finally, the [Forest Service] also analyzed the relationship of the project-level habitat impacts to the bioregional BBWO population trends and determined that after Project implementation, there would still be sufficient acres of forested areas that burned at high severity to support BBWO suitable habitat. Further, the district court correctly found that the species distribution requirements only applied to the greater Sierra Nevada bioregional level, but not to the specific project at issue here. The district court correctly found that the Forest Service had analyzed the population distribution data in sufficient detail, concluding that the project would preserve a sufficient area to support the woodpeckers. We give great deference to agencies when faced with this type of scientific evidence. See, e.g., Castaneda, 574 F.3d at 664; McNair, 537 F.3d at 993. Although we relied on species viability requirements in, for example, McNair, 537 F.3d at 992, 998, we emphasize the fact that such requirements only apply when contained in the pertinent forest plan for the site-specific area. Id. at 992, 994-95. This was not the case here. Earth Island also relies on the 1983 version of 36 C.F.R. § 219.19 as standing for the proposition that species viability was required. But as we said in McNair, [s]ection 219.19 required the Forest Service to manage wildlife habitat `to maintain viable populations of existing... species' and required the Forest Service to designate management indicator species (MIS) to monitor and evaluate wildlife viability. This regulation is no longer in effect.  537 F.3d at 989 n. 5 (emphasis added, citation omitted). Here, in explaining how the 2007 Plumas National Forest Plan Amendment relates to the partially superceded 1982 planning rule, the Forest Service emphasized that only the aspects of § 219.19 in the 1982 planning rule related to selecting MIS (§ 219.19(a)(1)) [2] and monitoring during forest plan implementation (§ 219.19(a)(6)) [3] apply. Other aspects of § 219.19 are related to forest plan development or revision and do not apply.  (Emphasis added). Accordingly, Earth Island's reliance on 36 C.F.R. § 219.19 is unavailing. Our role is simply to ensure that the Forest Service made no clear error of judgment that would render its action arbitrary and capricious. McNair, 537 F.3d at 993 (quotation marks omitted). This was not the case here. Courts may not impose procedural requirements not explicitly enumerated in the pertinent statutes. Id. (alteration omitted). Accordingly, the district court did not abuse its discretion when it concluded that Earth Island was not likely to succeed on the merits of its argument that in analyzing and implementing the project at issue, the Forest Service was required to ensure species viability.