Your Help (Still) Needed to Protect
National Forest Roadless Areas!

Despite talk by the Forest Service, Bush Administration and former Clinton Administration about protecting roadless areas, logging, roadbuilding and other extractive activities are still taking place in American's public wildlands. Photo M. McGovern-Rowen-NFN

By Deb Kmon, American Wildlands

Update on the Roadless Area Initiative

May 2001, has brought two major assaults upon the Roadless Area Conservation Rule (the Roadless Area Initiative of Clinton's era). First, on May 4 the Bush Administration announced its plans to amend the Roadless Rule in order to allow more locally based decision making, because the Administration believes that there was inadequate local participation during the past 3 years of public process. Essentially, the Bush administration intends to gut the newly acquired protections for roadless areas and allow Forest by Forest to decide how to manage these areas.

On May 10th, 2001, a federal judge in Idaho halted the Roadless Rule by granting plaintiffs a preliminary injunction. This ruling immediately opens up Roadless Areas for logging, mining and road building. President Bush clearly bears responsibility for this decision, because of the administration's failure to defend the legal merits of the rule. Environmental groups, who gained intervenor status, will appeal this decision, but that will not be decided for many months. Roadless areas are open for development again until the Court makes a final decision on the case.

Now is the time for supporters of roadless areas and wild lands to speak out! Below you will find a number of ways that you can express you unhappiness with Bush's failure to stand up and defend our public lands and his decision to rewrite the plan.

1. Write a letter to the editor: Below is a list of key issues that should be raised in a letter to the editor. Express you frustration with the administration, talk about a favorite roadless area that you love and let the public know how disappointed you would be if it had a road in it and/or was logged.

2. Contact your Representative and Senators: Urge them to support the immediate and complete protection of all National Forest roadless areas from road building, logging and oil and gas drilling. Congress has the ability to cut-off all funding for these destructive activities in roadless areas, as well as direct the Forest Service to place a moratorium on road construction and timber sales.

They can be reached at 202-224-3121 or write to:

Senator_______ U.S. Senate Washington, D.C. 20510

Representative_____ U.S. House of Representatives Washington, D.C. 20515

3. Contact Forest Service Chief Dale Bosworth: -Urge him to place an immediate moratorium on all road construction and logging projects in roadless areas. -He can be reached at 202-205-1661, fax 202-205-1765 or write to:

Chief Dale Bosworth Forest Service Sidney R. Yates Federal Building 201 14th Street, SW at Independence Ave., SW Washington, DC 20250

Key points to make in your letters:

1. Public process was adequate and showed overwhelming support for roadless areas: The Roadless Rule was the result of 3 years of public input that included 600 public hearings and 1.6 million people commenting, more than 90 percent of which supported strong protection.

2. National Forests have too many roads, many of which are not being maintained: -There are 380,000 miles of inventoried roads on our National Forests, enough to circle the earth 16 times. There are 52,000 miles of unclassified roads. -There is a phenomenal maintenance backlog for these roads. In 1998 the Forest Service received funding for 20% of road maintenance needs, leaving 80% of National Forest roads not meeting standards or being fixed. The maintenance needs in 1998 exceeded $8 billion dollars. -Taxpayers should not be expected to pay for any more roads, when we can not even afford to fix and maintain the ones we have.

3. Polls show that there is overwhelming support for roadless area protection: A recent poll (April 2001) by the Mellman Group, showed that an overwhelming majority of Western voters (65%) favor a protecting roadless areas, with 52% saying they favor this policy strongly.

4. Oil and gas resources are very limited in roadless areas: There are very limited supplies of oil and gas in roadless areas and the full costs of extraction outweigh the benefits. Based on a analysis by the US Geological Service the 6 states roadless areas hold only 0.4% of the nations oil reserves and only 0.6% of gas reserves.

6. Fire, bugs and roadless areas: Roadless areas are NOT at risk from high frequency, high-intensity wildfires and insect infestations. Science is strongly on the side of protecting roadless lands. Numerous studies around the country conclude that road construction and logging are more likely to increase wildfire in forested areas than would be the case if these areas were left in a natural state.

7. Access, Fishing and Hunting and Roadless Areas: Protecting roadless areas from road construction and motorized use will help maintain the Northern Rockies amazing hunting and fishing opportunities. The Roadless Rule would not close any roads or trails, it would only limited new road construction and the majority of commercial logging.