Forest Officials: Ruling Won’t Stop Closures

Nez Perce National Forest officials say a federal ruling that overturned the convictions of 12 environmental activists will not prevent all future forest closures.

U.S. District Judge Edward Lodge last week overturned the convictions for violating a forest closure on the grounds the Forest Service did not cite any specific standards that justified denying the Earth First! activists a permit allowing entry into the timber sale area.

The convictions resulted from a 1995 protest against road construction and logging in the Jack Creek timber sale area in which activists sat in wooden tripods or chained themselves to gates to block road access.

Nez Perce Forest spokesman Ihor Mereszczak said Lodge’s ruling will cause the agency to be more specific about closures.

“We always try to balance a situation … with the rights of people to do their jobs and the rights of free speech,” Mereszczak said. “Here the court said we needed to provide more specificity and apply specific criteria in a closure order.

“We’ll just make our adjustments and make sure we follow the court precedent in the future.”

Activists claim the closures violate their freedom of speech and assembly. Mereszczak said they resulted from the environmentalists’ actions, and were put in place to ensure public safety.

“We didn’t institute that closure until we had experiences of some interference. Usually something happens and then we have to react. We don’t do it just as a matter of practice.”