- Category: Environmental - Published on Friday, 02 December
2011 12:03 - Written by Press Release The ruling by the U.S.
Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit addresses the Forest
Service’s travel management plan for the 155,000-acre Hyalite-
Porcupine-Buffalo Horn Wilderness Study Area in southwest
Montana’s Gallatin National Forest. The area encompasses the
crest of the Gallatin Mountain Range and constitutes the largest
block of roadless public land adjoining Yellowstone National
Park that has not yet received protection as a designated
wilderness. The area contains important habitat for grizzly
bears, wolverines, and lynx, but the Forest Service authorized
escalating levels of snowmobile and motorcycle use in the area.
In response, conservation groups—including the Greater
Yellowstone Coalition, Montana Wilderness Association, and The
Wilderness Society—filed a lawsuit to enforce legal protections
for the area under the 1977 Montana Wilderness Study Act.
Today’s ruling overturned the Forest Service’s dec