Forests Forever Action Alerts
Updated
1/29/04
Bush administration wants to undo roadless rule's forest protections
Roadless—for now: Bell Mountain, an Inventoried Roadless Area in California's Eldorado National Forest.
(Photo courtesy USDA Forest Service)
The
Bush administration is planning to rewrite the rules governing management
of the nation’s last remaining tracts of roadless and unprotected
wilderness.
Environmental groups expect the administration to announce its changes
to the Roadless Area Conservation Rule by the end of January 2004.
The roadless rule was written during the Clinton administration
and put in place in January 2001. The rule was developed over three
years in more than 600 public meetings, and has received 2.5 million
public comments, 95 percent of them supportive.
The roadless rule protects 58.5 million roadless acres of national
forest from roadbuilding, logging, mining, and ski resort development.
(That protected acreage was lessened recently, however, when the
administration decided to exclude Alaska’s Tongass National
Forest from the rule’s provisions.)
The
existing roadless rule protects the last third of our undeveloped
national forest land, areas not formally designated as wilderness.
By keeping logging roads out of large portions of the national forests,
the rule protects habitat for more than 1,500 species of fish and
wildlife, and preserves watersheds, ensuring our supply of clean
drinking water. Roadless areas generate approximately $600 million
from wilderness recreation every year. Most importantly, the roadless
rule keeps wild forestlands intact so that future generations will
be able to enjoy them unscarred by logging roads and clearcuts.
There are 4,416,000 roadless acres in California’s national
forests. If the roadless rule is weakened, this vast acreage of
forest could be opened to logging, mining, gas and oil drilling,
and other development.
Stripping
away forest defenses
Prompted
by the timber industry, Bush appointees have chipped away at the
roadless rule since the early days of this administration, proposing
revisions to National Forest Management Act regulations that would
(among many other damaging effects) weaken protections for roadless
areas. The Justice Department has failed to defend the roadless
rule in court, and– in line with other administration attempts
to stifle public input– is trying to keep citizens from defending
it themselves.
After a Wyoming District Court decision against the rule in July
2003, the Justice Department declined to appeal. Then, Department
of Agriculture Undersecretary Mark Rey announced that the administration
intends to rewrite the rule entirely, allowing governors to apply
for exemptions for federal public lands in their states.
In a preview of what is in store for forests in the rest of the
country, the administration’s exemption of Alaska’s
vast Tongass National Forest from the roadless rule has opened 300,000
acres of old-growth forest to clear-cutting. An exemption for Chugach
National Forest also is being considered. Together, the Tongass
and Chugach forests contain one-fourth of all the roadless acres
in the United States.
WHAT
YOU CAN DO
The Roadless Area Conservation Rule provides essential protections
to the remaining wild forests in the United States. Let the Bush
administration hear your concerns. Write to the head of the U.S.
Forest Service, Chief Dale Bosworth, and let him know that you do
not want the protections of the Roadless Area Conservation Rule
weakened in any way.
Write to:
Chief Dale Bosworth
USDA Forest Service
P.O. Box 96090
14 Independence Ave. SW
Washington, DC 20079-6090
For a Forest Service map of California's Inventoried Roadless Areas, see:
http://www.roadless.fs.fed.us/states/ca/state3.shtml
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