Northern Rockies

The Earthjustice Northern Rockies office focuses on protecting biodiversity, safeguarding sacred Indigenous lands, defending water quality, and transitioning from fossil fuels to renewable energy through litigation and partnerships in Idaho, Montana, and Wyoming.

• Earthjustice is utilizing litigation to protect imperiled species and their habitats in the Northern Rockies, specifically focusing on the recovery of bison, grizzly bears, and gray wolves. Efforts include defending public lands grazing permits for bison in north-central Montana and challenging the removal of federal protections for grizzly bears in the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem.
• The organization partners with Indigenous communities to prevent resource extraction on sacred lands. Key actions include litigating to stop new mining at the abandoned Zortman gold mine and the Cabinet Mountains Wilderness in Montana, and fighting to cancel an oil and gas lease in the Badger-Two Medicine region of the Blackfeet Nation's spiritual homeland.
• Earthjustice is engaged in several efforts to protect regional water quality, including challenging selenium pollution from Canadian coal mining in the Kootenai River watershed and opposing the Black Butte Copper Mine to protect Montana's Smith River. Additionally, they have spent over 25 years litigating for the removal of four Army Corps of Engineers dams on the lower Snake River to restore salmon runs.
• The office is working to end coal production and prevent new gas infrastructure to facilitate a transition to renewable energy. This includes defending a moratorium on new federal coal leases and challenging the construction of a 175-megawatt methane gas plant by NorthWestern Energy in eastern Montana.
• Earthjustice is challenging recent legislative changes in Montana that they argue diminish environmental protections, specifically amendments to the coal-mine permitting program and laws that prohibit state agencies from considering climate change impacts.

APA

Lauw, M. (2023). Northern Rockies. Earthjustice. https://earthjustice.org/feature/northern-rockies

Chicago

Lauw, Monica. Northern Rockies. Earthjustice, 2023. https://earthjustice.org/feature/northern-rockies.

Wikipedia

{{cite report |last1=Lauw |first1=Monica |title=Northern Rockies |publisher=Earthjustice |date=7 August 2023 |url=https://earthjustice.org/feature/northern-rockies |access-date=23 October 2026 |via=Climate Insights Directory}}

BibTeX

@techreport{lauw2023northern, author = {Lauw, Monica}, title = {{Northern Rockies}}, institution = {Earthjustice}, year = {2023}, month = aug, url = {https://earthjustice.org/feature/northern-rockies}, urldate = {2026-10-23}, note = {Indexed by Climate Insights Directory} }