In deciding against a challenge to a logging plan in northern Idaho, eleven judges of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that it’s improper for judges to act as a panel of scientists when weighing in on U.S. Forest Service timber projects.

The judges overturned a previous 2007 decision by a panel of three 9th Circuit judges that halted the Mission Brush project on the Panhandle National Forest. The judges wrote they wanted to remedy past mistakes the court had made when weighing in on matters of environmental law.

Timber-industry lobbyists immediately called the ruling a “landmark decision,” partly because it emerged from a court traditionally seen as favorable to environmental groups challenging projects on federal land. (AP)