For Immediate Release, May 5, 2025

Appeal Challenges Plan to Bulldoze Forests, Sagebrush Near Nevada National Park

Massive Pine, Juniper, Sagebrush Removal Threatens Species, Tribal Traditions

LAS VEGAS— Western Watersheds Project and the Center for Biological Diversity filed an appeal today challenging a federal court decision allowing the U.S. Bureau of Land Management to clearcut thousands of acres of pinyon-juniper woodland and sagebrush on public lands near Great Basin National Park.

The proposed deforestation project would destroy more than 380,000 acres of pinyon-juniper forest in Spring Valley, one of the most scenic and culturally significant landscapes in the Great Basin. The Bureau plans to use an outdated process involving bulldozers that drag massive chains across forests to rip up the pinyon-juniper trees and any other plants in their path. The project also includes the widespread use of mowing and harrowing, which would destroy sagebrush habitat.

“These native forests are important for bats, migratory birds and elk, among many other species, and are already dying back due to prolonged drought in some areas,” said Paul Ruprecht, Nevada director for Western Watersheds Project. “We should be focused on protecting pinyon and juniper habitats as climate refugia, not grinding them up like trash.”

Today’s appeal, filed with the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, seeks to overturn a district court decision that allowed the project to proceed.

The Bureau’s project would harm sagebrush habitats for imperiled greater sage grouse, pygmy rabbits and pinyon jays. These habitats are already suffering from livestock grazing, invasive species and unnatural fire cycles. Pinyon-juniper forests have been devastated since the mid-1800s by logging for building and mining operations.

“This appeal is meant to force the Bureau of Land Management to follow the law and finally conduct a comprehensive environmental review of this terrible project,” said Scott Lake, Nevada staff attorney at the Center for Biological Diversity. “The agency has been playing games with Spring Valley and its critically important wildlife and biodiversity for too long. This place deserves protection, not bulldozers.”

Spring Valley is an important cultural landscape for the Western Shoshone people, both as a traditional location for gathering and ceremony, and as a site of repeated massacres by colonizers. Tribes and their members today maintain ties to historical and traditional pinyon pine nut gathering at various locations and hold ceremonies to coincide with the annual pine nut harvest.

Two Western Shoshone Tribal elders, Delaine and Rick Spilsbury, have supported the litigation by testifying to their cultural and spiritual connection to Spring and Hamlin valleys.

“If it looks like deforestation and defoliation, it will eventually be called that,” said Rick Spilsbury. “And only then will this act be seen for what it is: ecocide for agriculture, a back-door water grab, and the destruction of the natural world that supported my people for tens of thousands of years for a short-term gain.”