SACRAMENTO - The management plan for 11.5 million acres of national forest in the Sierra harms wildlife while illegally increasing logging under the guise of fire prevention, environmental groups told a federal judge Monday.

They want the U.S. Forest Service to return to a 2001 plan approved in the last days of the Clinton Administration, a plan they say offers more protection for the environment and 200 scarce species such as the California spotted owl, martin and Pacific fisher.

The hearing, set to conclude today, is the latest legal skirmish in a 15-year battle over managing the 11 national forests. U.S. District Judge Morrison England Jr. said he might schedule additional hearings before ruling in what he called an enormously complicated lawsuit.

U.S. Agriculture Undersecretary Mark Rey approved the plan in March 2005, agreeing with Forest Service officials who advocated increased logging. They argued that thinning trees, particularly around communities, is needed to cut the risk of deadly wildfires such as the ones that cut a swath of destruction throughout Southern California in 2003.

The Sierra Nevada Forest Protection Campaign, Sierra Club, Natural Resources Defense Council, Center for Biological Diversity and the Wilderness Society sued even before Rey's decision.

They argued that the new plan triples the amount of timber to be logged and that there was no scientific justification for the Forest Service's decision to boost logging. They particularly object to the decision to allow logging of larger trees -- those up to 30 inches in diameter, compared to 20 inches in most areas under the 2001 plan.

The Forest Service says the logging of commercially valuable trees is needed to help pay for thinning of less desirable smaller trees and brush.

During Monday's hearing, England questioned whether the Forest Service allowed for enough public comment and accounted for the combined damage of all the logging when it decided there would be minimal harm to protected species.

But he also expressed skepticism about the steps the environmental groups say the Forest Service is required to take before approving logging plans. For instance, the groups want monitoring of species such as the martin and fisher that no longer exist in many areas scheduled for logging.

The fisher "is a species that has not been seen north of Yosemite and south of the Oregon border in decades," England said. "There may be nothing to actually monitor."

Attorney David Edelson, arguing for the environmental groups, said the Forest Service has a duty to track the harm to species that do exist, as well as damage to the habitat of species that could live there but have been wiped out.

"There will be a negative impact on habitat that will affect these species," Edelson said. "We're talking about impacts to old forests and old forest species like the spotted owl."

The Forest Service did everything required by law, said Clay Samford, a U.S. Department of Justice attorney representing the federal government.

Despite the increased logging, the timber industry says the Forest Service's plan calls for cutting less than 1 percent of the larger trees over the next decade. The plan permits thinning trees in 25 percent of the forests, but much of the logging is around communities and is intended to create fire breaks.

The lawsuit by the environmental groups is one of three related to the Sierra management plan.

England has not yet scheduled hearings on one filed by California Attorney General Bill Lockyer, nor for another filed by the California Forestry Association. The forestry group says the management plan should include provisions to help the timber industry.