An environmental advocacy group has agreed to drop its pending lawsuit that accused federal agencies of planning forestry projects that could harm the Mexican spotted owl.
The bird's nesting grounds on national forest land in New Mexico and Arizona have become hotly contested battlegrounds. A separate complaint alleging federal agencies failed to properly monitor the threatened owl prompted a federal judge to halt timber activities in owl habitat last year.
Framed as "a new understanding," a truce was reached this week between the Center for Biological Diversity, the U.S. Forest Service, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, the states of New Mexico and Arizona, and the Eastern Arizona Counties Organization.
In return for the Center for Biological Diversity scrapping its litigation, the Forest Service has ensured tree-thinning and controlled burns in six national forests in New Mexico and Arizona will better protect the Mexican spotted owl, which has been listed as threatened since 1993 under the Endangered Species Act.
“This landmark understanding provides better protection for this beautiful endangered bird and the rare, large tree-dominated, upper-elevation habitat that the owls need to survive,” said Robin Silver, the center's co-founder, in a statement.
Silver hailed the truce as an example of how conservationists and government entities can work together to protect wildlife and the forests.
The Forest Service agreed to present all projects that involve Mexican spotted owls to the public in a standardized format that will include current data, such as the number of large trees and amount of canopy that will be affected by thinning or prescribed burns.
Future forest projects will include this tracking data as part of a new habitat-monitoring program.
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