FOR
IMMEDIATE RELEASE
July
29, 2005
Contact:
Paul Hughes, (415) 974-4201, M-F between 11 am and 6 pm
Marc Lecard, (415) 974-4202, M-F between 9 am to 5 pm
National
Forest Roadless Area Conservation Act re-introduced
Bipartisan bill would permanently protect roadless areas
On
Thursday, July 28, U.S. Reps. Jay Inslee (D-WA) and Sherwood Boehlert
(R-NY) re-introduced the National Forest Roadless Area Conservation
Act of 2005, a forest protection bill with 143 bipartisan co-sponsors.
Inslee is re-introducing the bill in response to the recent U.S.
Forest Service repeal of the Roadless Area Conservation Rule of
2001, which had been signed by President Clinton just before leaving
office.
The original Roadless Area Conservation Rule was the most popular
environmental rule ever written, with 4.2 million comments over
several public comment periods. The overwhelming majority of these
comments (97.9 percent) were favorable to the original rule. The
roadless rule protected 58.5 million roadless acres of national
forest from roadbuilding, logging, drilling, mining, and other development.
The loss of protection for roadless areas puts at risk hundreds
of plant, insect, and animal species, threatens water quality and
leaves forests more vulnerable than before to invasive species.
“In California we have 18 national forests and more than 4
million roadless acres,” said Paul Hughes, executive director
of Forests Forever in San Francisco. “They were off limits
under Clinton’s Roadless Rule of 2001, but now these areas
are at risk of road construction– which would literally pave
the way for more logging, dams, industrial development, erosion,
water pollution, and oil and gas drilling.”
Forests Forever has campaigned for preserving the protections of
the original roadless rule since 2003. The San Francisco-based group
is urging people to write, email, FAX, or phone their congressional
representative and urge him or her to support Inslee’s bill.
The National Forest Roadless Area Conservation Act of 2005 would:
• keep logging, oil and gas drilling, mining, and other forms
of development out
of pristine, unroaded national forest land;
• help preserve watersheds and provide a clean water supply.
More than 2,000
watersheds that contribute to public drinking water are found in
roadless areas;
• keep rivers and streams able to sustain fish populations
by protecting them from
damage by road runoff, logging and other kinds of development;
• protect wildlife habitat on which many endangered species
depend. More than
1,600 threatened, endangered or sensitive plant and animal species
are found in
roadless areas;
• write the protections afforded by the original Roadless
Area Conservation Rule
into federal law, which could not be changed by executive whim.
“The Bush administration has abandoned roadless forests,”
Hughes said. “This bill will help us hold the line against
any attempt to give away California’s roadless areas to extractive
industry.”
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