Defending Special Places

Case: Concerned Friends of the Winema, Klamath-Siskiyou Wildlands Center, Western Watersheds Project, Oregon Wild, and Central Oregon Bitterbrush Broads of the Great Old Broads for Wilderness v. Douglas C. McKay, Barry L. Imler, U.S. Forest Service, Laurie Sada, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service

October 26, 2023 — Advocates for the West and our partners won a strong victory to protect Oregon spotted frogs on Jack Creek in the Fremont-Winema National Forest. The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) fell short of its obligations under the Endangered Species Act when issuing a Biological Opinion […]

Case: Idaho Conservation League and Greater Yellowstone Coalition v. U.S. Forest Service

May 4, 2020 — The U.S. District Court in Idaho revoked the Forest Service’s approval of the Kilgore Project and stopped Otis Gold Corp. (now Excellon Resources Inc.) from moving forward with its exploration project. This important decision follows Judge Winmill’s December 2019 ruling that the Forest Service failed to consider Otis’s underground drilling as a […]

Case: Center For Biological Diversity, Sierra Club, and WildEarth Guardians v. Raymond Suazo, BLM Arizona State Office, David Bernhardt, Bureau of Land Management

February 6, 2020 — Advocates for the West reached an agreement with the Trump administration suspending 4,200 acres of oil and gas leases on public land in Arizona’s Little Colorado River Valley as part of a joint motion filed in federal court. The federal government’s suspension of the leases prohibits any oil and gas activity […]

Case: Friends of Cedar Mesa v. U.S. Department of Interior, Bureau of Land Management, and Kent Hoffman

August 15, 2024 — Chief Administrative Judge Silvia Riechel Idziorek granted our motion to intervene in appeals the State of Utah, San Juan County, and Kirkwood Oil & Gas. July 12, 2024 — Advocates for the West filed a motion to intervene in appeals by the State of Utah, San Juan County, and Kirkwood Oil […]

Case: Petition Filed against Bureau of Land Management

June 15, 2018 – Advocates for the West challenged the Bureau of Land Management’s (BLM) approval of the Perdito Project – a gold mine exploration project that would drill mining holes on Conglomerate Mesa, which is located on California Desert Conservation Lands. Conglomerate Mesa is a spectacularly wild and remote area of the Inyo Mountains in […]

Case: Neighbors of the Mogollon Rim, Inc. v. U.S. Forest Service

October 11, 2018 — Advocates for the West just reached an agreement with the Forest Service to keep the beautiful forested area below the Mogollon Rim in the Tonto National Forest free from livestock grazing for the foreseeable future. The area will remain cattle-free while the agency assesses whether grazing is compatible with the landscape and how it may affect […]

Case: Greater Hells Canyon Council v. Kris Stein and United States Forest Service

January 10, 2018 — Advocates for the West partnered with Jennifer R. Schwartz to file suit against the U.S. Forest Service for failing to protect a unique and biologically diverse stretch of Oregon canyon country between the Imnaha and Snake Rivers from livestock grazing impacts. The Forest Service completed its Lower Imnaha Range Analysis (LIRA) — […]

Case: Advocates for the West v. United States Department of Justice

October 12, 2017 – Advocates for the West is representing itself in a suit filed today by Senior Attorney Todd Tucci against Attorney General Jeff Sessions and the Department of Justice, seeking disclosure of unlawfully withheld documents demonstrating that President Trump and Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke lack authority to vacate or shrink Bears Ears National Monument, Grand Staircase Escalante […]

Case: Winter Wildlands Alliance and WildEarth Guardians v. U.S. Forest Service

March of 2018 — The Forest Service withdrew its winter travel maps and committed to conduct winter travel planning on each of the three forests listed in our case – the Boise and Payette National Forests in Idaho and a portion of the Bridger-Teton National Forest in Wyoming. We agreed to dismiss the case based […]

July 13, 2026 — President Trump signed two executive orders significantly reducing the size of Utah’s Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monuments. Together, the orders cut almost three million acres of monument protection, with Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument losing 1.69 million acres and Bears Ears losing 1.24 million acres. The reductions amount to about […]