The suit made its way to the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, which
found that the Forest Service grossly exaggerated demand for
Tongass timber and failed to explore options for cutting trees
outside of the forest's pristine roadless areas. The court
ordered the agency to rewrite the management plan. "The Forest
Service should be cutting taxpayer losses instead of cutting
roadless areas," said Tom Waldo, the Earthjustice attorney who
represented the plaintiffs. "The settlement agreement protects
the roadless areas of the Tongass until the Forest Service
completes the new forest plan, so the trees will still be
standing in the places that are most important for hunting,
fishing, wildlife, recreation, and tourism. That makes it
possible to adopt a new plan that will protect the remaining
wild, natural areas of the forest, that will recognize the
greatly reduced demand for logging on the Tongass, and that cuts
the huge taxpayer losses that the Tongass suffers every year."
Waldo also sounded a note of caution about