In a packed room on the edge of Yellowstone National Park, dozens of people showed up to voice their concerns for another U.S. Forest Service project that has been fast-tracked under authority granted by the Trump administration.
In April 2025, the administration opened nearly 113 million acres of the U.S. National Forest System — 59 percent in total — to logging in the name of a forest health “emergency.” The Bear Palmer Project, located just north of the country’s oldest and most iconic national park near Gardiner, Montana, is the next forest on the chopping block. More than 4,000 acres in the Custer Gallatin National Forest have been determined at “high-risk” for wildfire, but the area also includes critical habitat for protected wildlife species, “Inventoried Roadless Areas” and recreational spots that drive the local economy. For many locals, these are aspects of the project that could jeopardize important community lifeways.
“Mitigating risk around properties is one thing,” said Ashea Mills, long-time resident in Gardiner. “Clearcutting large swaths of land is another. There are risks to living in a wild space.”
A public meeting held in Gardiner the evening of April 30 gave Forest Service officials the chance to respond with their in-house experts before the hasty deadline for citizens to comment on the project by May 11..
Forests determined to be in an “emergency situation” under Section 40807 of the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act are indicative of the Forest Service’s new authority to expedite forest-management projects in the name of reducing wildfire risk, minimizing insect infestations or disease, and improving timber production. Forest Service project environmental assessments typically include a preliminary 45-day objection period for the public before the decision is finalized. The agency, however, can bypass that due diligence under the new scope of authority given by the IIJA. Criteria that qualifies a forest for being at risk are things like overgrowth from fire suppression, trees with excessive disease or insect infestation, or in the case of the Bear Palmer project, all three.
The project was not necessarily determined as an “emergency” at the local level, according to Forest Service officials present at last week’s meeting, but was already in the Custer Gallatin National Forest’s five-year management plan. Don Ulrich, the assistant environmental coordinator for CGNF, said that surveying had been going on for years now, and other than the missing objection period, all other standard procedures would be met for the project’s environmental assessment. The “need,” as outlined by the Bear Palmer Forest Health Project Preliminary Effects Document, is to reduce wildfire risks to the vulnerable, single-road access community of Jardine by managing fuels and restoring habitat. The document states that these efforts will ultimately improve ecosystem health, firefighter safety and resilience against future disturbances to the forest and community alike.
Park County citizens present at the meeting, many from Gardiner and Jardine, weighed in on both sides. Regardless of whether they were for or against the project, it was clear that many community members noticed the gaps in some of the document’s language.
“The document has been described as suspiciously specific and disturbingly vague,” said Becky Johnson, a homeowner in Jardine.
According to Sarah Stands, community resilience director for Park County Environmental Council, parts of the document felt like a disclaimer or liability shield, but some of those disparities were clarified by Forest Service officials at the Thursday meeting. Still, the ambiguous language in the document leaves margins open to interpretation that could lead to a guessing game on how the implementation phase will play out. Although the project was published on April 7th, the map provided in the proposal lacked the Forest Service unit numbers. A map with these details was first provided on April 30th, making the 30-day environmental assessment comment period feel rushed, which she also found concerning.
“The document has been described as suspiciously specific and disturbingly vague.”
Becky Johnson, Jardine homeowner on the Bear Palmer Forest Health Project Preliminary Effects Document
“Thursday evening was the first time we were able to see a map with the [Forest Service] unit numbers labeled,” Stands said. “You’re talking seven business days for people to review every unit, and then provide contextual and substantive comments that are relevant for improving the project. Even without seasonal closures this is an impossibility.”
Forest Service officials that hosted the meeting highlighted an ecological need for the forest that is more than 150 years overdue thanks to a history of fire suppression. Deadfall, disease and other environmental factors all fed into their determination. They said the guideposts for where and how to treat the landscape is based on a clear scientific framework, including considerations for different tree species’ natural growth patterns, and the importance of having a diverse mix of young and old trees that mitigate susceptibility to wildfire. The project proposal has both commercial and non-commercial treatments planned, including methods from clearcutting to prescribed burns.
A few locals, including Zondra Skertich, see some value in the plans outlined. Skertich owns a house in the wildland-urban interface and knows that a home like hers is at higher risk for wildfire. Her support is limited, however, as she sees only negative trickle effects from clear-cutting. Not only will the logging road run next to her property and impact her Airbnb business, she says that many of the clear-cut areas have important recreational value for skiing, with trees providing shade that sustains snow even in warm and dry winters like the one Greater Yellowstone just experienced.
“Those are the trees I am going to fight the hardest for,” said Skertich.
The Bear Palmer Project also overlaps protected areas for threatened and endangered species. The most notable are the Canada lynx, where two-thirds of its critical habitat lies within one of the project’s units. Grizzly bears, where secure habitat currently sits as high as 91.1 percent in some of the proposed USFS units, may see short-term disturbances, but the document states it will be temporary and not last for more than four consecutive years.
Other species, including wolverine (with about half the units in primary habitat) and whitebark pine (present in roughly 40 percent of units), face localized impacts. Officials at the meeting stated that surveys and data have been utilized to create buffer zones for wildlife, that they aim to preserve landscape connectivity, and that some treatments could improve habitat in the long run.
Many of the aspects of “need” in the Bear Palmer Project — as well as the oversights — are echoed in another Forest Service project in the Custer Gallatin National Forest near Hyalite Canyon, just south of Bozeman. Last week, four conservation groups filed suit against the federal agency claiming there wasn’t enough research to prove that the project isn’t negatively affecting species protected under the Endangered Species Act. Similar scrutiny was reverberated in the recent Cooke City Fuels and Forest Health Project, which also outlined “potential impacts” on both wildlife and natural resources without specific data to clarify how those adverse impacts might transpire.
According to Stands, this lack of transparency is exactly what the Forest Service needs to improve on for projects like Bear Palmer. She says that citizens should be clear on who decides what, the monitoring metrics, and have more confidence that there are internal checks and balances in place.
“It is uncertain to me how the best and most relevant data is being used to weigh the risks and rewards of these treatments,” Stands said. “And that is the context that is needed to truly ensure benefits to people and the long-term health of the landscape.”