June 18, 2026

Northwoods Logging Project Puts Wisconsin Wildlife at Risk

Forest Service plans to clearcut over 45,000 acres of forest in West Zone project, without doing required analysis

By Max Lopez, Associate Attorney

The Chequamegon-Nicolet National Forest (CNNF) is the centerpiece of Wisconsin’s Northwoods. Encompassing over 1.5 million acres, the forest includes 3,200 lakes, streams, and rivers, supports important ecological biodiversity, and provides vital carbon sequestration that helps to fight climate change. Hundreds of thousands of visitors explore the forest’s 800+ miles of trails and waterways every year, fueling the local economy. Unfortunately, the CNNF is also one of the most heavily logged national forests in the country, which can harm the forest and the many communities and species who rely on it.

This year, the U.S. Forest Service has announced a new proposal that threatens to significantly increase the harm caused by logging in the CNNF. The West Zone Aspen Fir Regeneration Project would clearcut over 45,000 acres of forest, affecting numerous threatened, endangered, and sensitive animal and plant species. Despite the scale of the proposed clearcuts, the agency did not conduct the rigorous environmental analysis required or consider reasonable alternatives. In late May, ELPC and Friends of the Yellow River submitted comments calling out the agency’s failure and highlighting the significant adverse impacts that will result if they don’t change course.

Read full comments

Under the National Environmental Policy Act, or “NEPA,” a thorough environmental impact statement, or “EIS,” is required whenever a proposed federal action threatens reasonably foreseeable and significant environmental effects. Instead, the Forest Service only prepared a short environmental assessment—one that disregarded most of the proposed project’s foreseeable impacts. Given the significance of the threat posed to the forest’s vital resources by large-scale clearcutting, this was unreasonable and unlawful.

Clearcutting Impacts Land & Life

The Chequamegon-Nicolet is home to vulnerable species, plants, and soils. It’s also a source of clean water that downstream communities depend on. Here are a few ways these resources are at risk from the West Zone project’s proposed logging:

• Vegetation – The Forest Service cites studies showing the detrimental effects of clearcutting, “especially to understory plants and lichens,” which can make “previously suitable rare plant habitat unsuitable.”
• Transportation – The West Zone project includes a significant increase in new and larger roads through the woods, affecting hundreds of miles of forest. Workers will be widening existing roads, building new roads, removing roadside trees, grubbing tree roots and soil, cutting species off from one another, and dividing up formerly contiguous habitat.
• Clean Water – The Forest Service says, “overall water quality for the wetlands, streams, lakes, and rivers in the project area is very good and considered pristine,” yet they don’t prioritize keeping it that way. The agency admits the logging could raise sedimentation and water temperature but assumes it won’t impair water long-term.
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  Monarch butterfly

  Vulnerable Species – The Forest Service admits that its proposed clearcutting could adversely affect both threatened and endangered species, but it still arbitrarily concludes that these impacts wouldn’t be significant. Here are a few species they list:

  • Northern Long–Eared Bat & Tri-colored Bat – The West Zone project would cut down trees these bats depend on to roost “during the summer occupancy period and pup season when young bats are unable to fly.”
  • Monarch Butterfly – These iconic continent-spanning butterflies depend on grasslands, milkweed, and other nectar sources in the Northwoods. The Forest Service recognized that “road maintenance, including road brushing, may have adverse effects on monarch butterfly larvae.”
  • Salamander Mussel – Although the West Zone project has “the potential to cause sedimentation to streams” that would likely impact this newly endangered species of mussel, the Forest Service offered little evidence for its presumptive claim that mitigation measures would eliminate this risk.
  • Gray Wolf –Despite the increase in human disturbance from harvesting and road work expected in the area, the Forest Service did not adequately analyze how the West Zone project might adversely affect the region’s wolves.

Forests are More than Scenery

In the Forest Service’s meager environmental assessment, the only issue they found worthy of study was “scenery management.” As a result of this narrow focus, the agency failed to give serious consideration to the many environmental impacts that would result from widespread clearcutting.

Even its evaluation of the proposed project’s scenic impacts was arbitrary. The Forest Service concluded the CNNF needs trees of various ages, otherwise “the scenic character of the project area may become less visually diverse … and reduce visual variety for CNNF recreational users.” How do they plan to accomplish this, you ask? Clearcutting! That is hardly scenic by any definition. They plan to chop down all the trees, without considering the significant harm clearcutting poses to the forest’s species, waters, and soils.

Conclusion

The West Zone Aspen Fir Regeneration project would have significant and unlawful effects on the lands and wildlife of the Chequamegon-Nicolet National Forest. The Forest Service must prepare an environmental impact statement evaluating alternatives that would better protect the forest’s extraordinary resources.