EcoFlight, whose mission is to educate and advocate for our remaining wildlands, watersheds, and culturally important landscapes, is staging a series of flights on June 15 and 16 over the two biggest logging projects of the century in Colorado.  

The projects—which involve clearcutting as well as aggressive tree removal in endangered species habitat, old-growth forest, and Roadless Areas—fall under a controversial “emergency” designation that fast tracks logging with limited public engagement or opportunity for legal challenge. The “emergency” logging was recently expanded by the Trump administration to cover 112 million acres of public lands, 59 percent of National Forests, weeks after an executive order to expand timber production.

The flights, coordinated in partnership with Environment America and Eco-Integrity Alliance, will be held on Sunday, June 15 out of Centennial and Tuesday, June 16 out of Colorado Springs with a few remaining spots for interested members of media to join.

The imminent “Lower North South Vegetation Management” in the Pike National Forest 30 miles southwest of Denver involves 116,600 acres of public lands logging, 18,573 acres of that across seven Roadless Areas.

The newly proposed “Pike’s Peak Vegetation Management” would be 194,567 acres of industrial logging, 13,500 acres within four protected Roadless Areas, and 244,210 acres of toxic herbicide spraying in the Pike and San Isabel National Forests.

These two projects, along with “St. Vrain” and “Black Diamond” in the Arapaho and Roosevelt National Forests, make up the “Big Four” totaling almost a half million acres (474,872) of public land along the length of Colorado’s Front Range Rocky Mountains in seven counties, including 61,439 acres across seventeen Roadless Areas.