A proposal by the U.S. Forest Service to allow oil and gas drilling across the entire 83,000-acre Conecuh National Forest in southern Alabama is facing new opposition after the Center for Biological Diversity and the Alabama Ornithological Society filed a formal objection Monday.
The Forest Service’s proposal comes following a 2025 executive order issued by the Trump administration, which directed federal agencies to examine oil and gas resources that may be made available for leasing in order to expand domestic production. In their official decision, the agency argues that opening up the Conecuh National Forest to oil and gas leasing would “[foster] the development of domestic mineral resources while sustaining the land’s productivity for other uses and allowing the Forest Service to fulfill its obligations to administer and protect [National Forest Service] surface resources consistently with applicable laws and regulations.”
However, the Center for Biological Diversity and the Alabama Ornithological Society argue that the proposal would endanger one of the most biologically diverse forests in the country.
The Conecuh—located along the Alabama-Florida border southeast of Evergreen, Alabama—shelters 19 federally protected species of wildlife, including red-cockaded woodpeckers, Eastern indigo snakes, Escambia map turtles and 300-pound Gulf sturgeon. It is also home to large stretches of longleaf pine forest, one of the world’s most endangered ecosystems.
Currently there are only 1,000 acres of active oil and gas leases and one active oil well in the forest.
“The Conecuh is a biological and recreational oasis that should be protected, not plundered by oil and gas companies,” said Lindsay Reeves, a senior attorney in the Center for Biological Diversity’s Endangered Species Program. “This proposal threatens what little public land Alabama has left and sets a dangerous precedent for other national forests in the eastern U.S. If oil companies are turned loose in this beautiful forest, toxic spills and water pollution will endanger a natural treasure that belongs to the American people.”
The Forest Service itself acknowledged various environmental risks involved in allowing oil and gas leasing in Alabama’s national forests in a 2004 environmental impact assessment and found that the Conecuh had “low development potential” in a 2021 review. However, in its recent decision, the agency argues that “changed circumstances” warrant an update in the land available for leasing. Nowhere in the decision are climate change or greenhouse gas emissions mentioned.
Beyond the potential for increased pollution in the Conecuh, the Center for Biological Diversity and Alabama Ornithological Society also argue that expanded oil and gas leasing would prevent the Forest Service from conducting regular controlled burns that maintain the health of the longleaf pine forests.
“Oil and gas wells across the entire national forest would limit prescribed burns and make them more dangerous to visitors and communities,” the Center for Biological Diversity stated in an official press release.
The groups are urging the Forest Service to reverse its decision and close the Conecuh to new oil and gas leasing, pressuring the agency to revise its analysis “which significantly underestimates the impacts of oil and gas drilling to water, air, wildlife and public health.”
