Black Ram Hearing – February 6th

The year 2025 begins the 9th calendar year of our defense of the ancient forest at Black Ram, in the northwest corner of Montana’s Yaak Valley. As part of our ground-truthing of the Black Ram proposal and the ancient inland rainforests that help comprise it, we have realized the necessity of preserving the area as a Climate Refuge, to maximize the storage of carbon in the long-term safekeeping of old and mature forests, as well as continuing to serve as a refuge for biodiversity in the only place in the United States where the Purcell Mountain range—Canada’s largest mountain range—enters the U.S. The 265,000-acre Black Ram Climate Refuge will also serve as a focal point for increased scientific as well as artistic inquiry into the effects of climate change on sensitive species, including our own.

The Black Ram region of the valley is the coldest and wettest portion of the valley—receiving twice as much annual precipitation as the country around Libby and Troy—but is threatened by the U.S. Forest Service’s Black Ram mega-timber sale on the Kootenai National Forest (KNF), which would clearcut over 2500 acres, much of it old-growth.

The Black Ram region of the Yaak has been called the “Fort Knox” of above-ground carbon storage in Montana, is the first place water comes into the state, and the last place the sun touches at the end of each day. It’s far and away one of the state’s most brilliant hotspots for biological diversity; fully 25% of the entire list of sensitive species in Montana are found on this one national forest alone, the Kootenai. Despite this, not a single acre of public land in the Yaak is permanently protected.

As activists and public lands holders, we could spend our hours raging, but to those who have been in the ancient groves at Black Ram, the old forest seems to remind us that it deserves more than even sacred rage. Instead, we’ve settled on a gamble: that studying it more deeply with our scientists and celebrating it with our nation’s finest artists, can help illuminate it in such a way that somehow the bulldozers will be stopped. Poet laureates have entered it and emerged with poems, and singer-songwriters have visited and created songs. Painters have gone in and come back out with incredible paintings. And most dramatically, luthiers have taken a piece of tight-grained ancient spruce that was damaged by a USFS clearcut at the edge of the old forest and built a small batch of craft guitars from that singular piece of wood—315 years a tree and now one year a guitar—as part of Jeff Bridges’ and Breedlove Guitars’ “All in This Together” sustainability campaign.

We have also brought more science—the best available science in the land—to the region, when the Forest Service and U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service have refused to do so. At enormous expense, we went to court, and prevailed, but the U.S. Dept. of Agriculture, the Kootenai National Forest, at the urging of American Forest Resources Council (AFRC), a timber industry trade and lobbying group, is appealing the favorable ruling. Our small but passionate defense of Black Ram has made it all the way to the Supreme Court, where AFRC has argued that the National Environmental Policy Act should be repealed because it allows even small groups to identify, illuminate, and seek redress against lawbreaking by federal agencies.
 
We all know 2025 and beyond will be changing times for our country. For all life on earth. We need your support more than ever as we continue to work to defend the most special pace we know: the Yaak and its intact wildness.

On February 4th, at the Old Church in Portland, Oregon, Oregonians will host a rally for the Black Ram defense, featuring the Black Ram guitar. The Black Ram argument is scheduled for Feb. 6 in Portland, at the 9th Circuit Court.  There is one argument ahead of Black Ram, so the Black Ram argument will likely begin around 9:40 am Pacific time.  The USFS will go first and split 20 minutes of argument, then attorneys for the Alliance for the Wild Rockies will split 20 minutes responding. The Ninth Circuit’s live streaming channel is: https://www.ca9.uscourts.gov/media/live-oral-arguments/.

 Thank you to everyone who’s been working on this and supporting this most special place. It matters so much, and for so many reasons. We believe justice will prevail again, in a time and land where it is often in full flight. Thank you. 

For a wild Yaak, 
Rick Bass
Executive Director
Yaak Valley Forest Council

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