MB Civic

By JESSE McKINLEY

SAN FRANCISCO, Aug. 22 — A federal judge struck down a Forest Service plan on Tuesday that would have allowed a commercial lumber company to harvest trees from inside the Giant Sequoia National Monument, a soaring woods in central California.

The ruling, by Judge Charles R. Breyer of Federal District Court, said the Forest Service’s plan for the monument, presented as an anti-fire effort to clear trees, brush and other natural kindling, lacked “coherent or clear guidance.”

After the state attorney general and environmental groups each filed suit last year, Judge Breyer issued a preliminary injunction last fall stopping logging in the monument, partly to protect endangered species there. His ruling on Tuesday upholding the prohibition was strongly worded.

“It is the court’s duty to ensure that the Forest Service’s plan is coherent and readily discernible,” Judge Breyer wrote. Instead, he found that the monument plan was “decidedly incomprehensible.”

Environmental groups hailed the decision as a sharp rebuke to the Forest Service, saying the plan would have allowed the logging of 7.5 million board feet a year.

“We’re elated that the Giant Sequoia National Monument is protected for now,” said Pat Gallagher, the director of environmental law for the Sierra Club.

Matt Mathes, a spokesman for the Forest Service, said the agency was “very disappointed” in the ruling.

“We have spent a tremendous amount of time and effort in developing a management plan,” Mr. Mathes said. “Now, we’ll sit down with our attorneys and the U.S. Department of Justice and decide what to do next.”

Mr. Mathes said an appeal was an option. Cynthia J. Magnuson, a spokeswoman for the Justice Department, which represented the Forest Service in the case, said the judge’s decision was under review.

The monument, a 328,000-acre reserve inside the 1.1-million-acre Sequoia National Forest, was established in 2000 by President Bill Clinton. Located at the southern end of the Sierra Nevada, the monument is home to two-thirds of the world’s giant sequoias, majestic skyscrapers of trees that can grow to more than 250 feet, with trunk diameters of 30 feet.

Bill Lockyer, the California attorney general, said in a statement, “Today’s ruling helps ensure these state gems will be standing for generations to come.”

Mr. Mathes said that under the Forest Service’s plan, which dates to 2004, a private company would have paid a fee to the government and removed brush and small-diameter trees that stand beneath the sequoias and could act as kindling for major forest fires.

“We do not have any plan whatsoever for cutting the giant sequoias that people come there to see,” he said.

In exchange, Mr. Mathes said, the Forest Service had planned “to toss in a few medium-size trees, along with a far greater number of smaller-diameter trees and brush, to make it worth the company’s while.” Otherwise, he said, “we’re going to have to pay someone to remove it.”

But Mr. Gallagher said the midsize trees in question could be up to 30 inches in diameter and up to 300 years old, increasingly rare in a region that has been both logged and periodically ravaged by fire.

“A 30-inch tree is a huge tree by today’s standards,” Mr. Gallagher said, adding, “The Forest Service is essentially proposing to sell timber to finance its operations.”

He added that the Sierra Club had urged the Bush administration to look at plans from Sequoia National Park, adjacent to the monument and controlled by the National Park Service, “which has used controlled burning and other innovative techniques” to reduce the risk of fire.

Mr. Mathes said the Forest Service was looking into such methods.