Environmentalists win $60,000 for blocking motorized juniper removal

U.S. District Judge Garr King has awarded the Oregon Natural Desert Association nearly $63,500 because the nonprofit prevailed in a lawsuit opposing the use of motorized vehicles in an 80,000-acre “wilderness study area” near Steens Mountain. Ranchers and local officials worry the prohibition against motorized vehicles will impede juniper removal to the detriment of habitat for the sage grouse. The bird’s declining population has prompted restoration efforts in the arid West to forestall its designation as a threatened species, which would likely curtail cattle grazing on public land. In 2015, King found that the U.S. Bureau of Land Management had interpreted its authority too broadly in allowing for the “administrative” use of off-road motorized vehicles to cut and remove juniper trees, which crowd out sage brush and sap water.