Day Lake Chequamegon-Nicolet National Forest, Wisconsin

Wild & Natural Places

Protecting the Wisconsin Northwoods

ELPC works to protect 1.5 million acres of Wisconsin’s beautiful Northwoods.

The beautiful Northwoods ecosystem stretches through Minnesota, Wisconsin, Michigan, and Ontario, home to old-growth trees, ecologically important waterways, and abundant biodiversity and wildlife habitat. In Wisconsin, the Chequamegon-Nicolet National Forest covers more than 1.5 million acres of this ecosystem, including over 3,200 lakes, streams, and rivers.

This treasured area is at risk as distressing policy shifts and budget cuts to the U.S. Forest Service and U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service threaten wildlife and biodiversity. Since 2016, the Forest Service has moved to increase the number, size, and intensity of timber sales in the National Forests. The Administration is also attempting to move forward with policy actions that weaken conservation of natural resources as the Forest Service implements its “multiple use” management approach. ELPC and our scientist colleagues and clients have been hard at work protecting the forest ecosystem for more than a decade and won’t stop.

What is ELPC Doing?

Monitoring timber sales and forest management plans

ELPC and our colleagues actively monitor each new timber sale permit and analyze the requests for potential threats to critical interior areas. We also continue to monitor forest “management plans” proposed by the U.S. Forest Service, and challenge them when too much logging is proposed too fast, and in too many of the wrong places.

Fighting in the courts to protect the woods

We have conducted administrative litigation on more than 20 proposed large-scale timber sales affecting almost 200,000 acres in this National Forest.

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