Roadless Areas Under Attack…..Again
By Aaron Kindle, New West Unfiltered 2-11-08
Our National Forest roadless areas are under attack, yet again. The recently released Draft Environmental Impact Statement (DEIS) for the Idaho’s roadless lands sheds light on the fact that the Bush Administration and the Forest Service are attempting to weaken protection on nearly two thirds of Idaho’s roadless areas or about 6 million of the 9.3 million roadless acres in Idaho. How can they expect the citizens to accept this sweeping removal of protection for so much land? We shouldn’t accept it and we need to let them know.
As you may recall, in 2001, the Roadless Area Conservation Rule (RACR) was established following years of scientific evidence, hundreds of public meetings across the country and 1.6 million public comments, the vast majority of them in support of roadless protection. Within days of taking office the Bush Administration however, set out to enervate and dismantle the RACR. This new proposal is one result of that dismantling. They are attempting to weaken protection by handing the process over to Idaho in an attempt to assert state control over federal lands and open up our remaining wildlands to roadbuilding, logging and mining.
Fortunately the Supreme Court recently upheld the original rule and reasserted it as law. The Bush Administration, the Forest Service, and the Governor of Idaho are however, needlessly moving forward with their efforts to weaken protections in Idaho. Thankfully, the vast majority of comments taken at recent hearings on the Idaho rule once again promote continued preservation and chastise this latest attempt to weaken protections.
Why does this issue continue to be revisited? The decision makers did not get what they wanted the first time so they’ve opened it up again to see if they can get things to happen in their favor. It seems as though the Forest Service likes to plunder National Forests even when it is proven time and time again that watersheds, wildlife, and aesthetic values are severely degraded and timber sales often lose money. The citizens tell them not to and they say – “well, we’re going to anyway, even when there is little demand for it”.
We, the citizens, want these areas to remain roadless. We’ve said so numerous times, and they are our roadless areas. Unfortunately, the Forest Service and the Bush Administration continue to ignore us. We can’t stop trying however. There is a lot more at stake than is obvious at first glance. These areas provide clean drinking water to our communities, they provide habitat for the game we hunt, they moderate temperatures in a time of ever increasing heat, they are an economic boon for adjacent communities, and they provide beautiful settings to let our minds wander and soak in our connection to the earth.
These areas represent a small fraction of the landmass – in Idaho it is less then one-fifth of the landmass and this is the largest fraction of any state, outside of Alaska. We’ve already taken so much – let’s leave these areas as they are. It would be a most sad and sorrowful day in human history when our kids or grandkids or any future generation had to tell their kids that there are no roadless wildlands left for them to visit and that they cannot see an elk or a bear in the wild because their ancestors plundered the wildlands away. What will we have to show for this? Houses, buildings, etc – are these worth our national heritage?
Furthermore, the current demand for more wood is extremely low. In fact, many western mills are laying off hundreds of people and leaving wood lying in the yards. Even the Director of Information Services at the Western Wood Products Association, Butch Barnhardt, recently said, in the Montana Standard, that the market for wood is horrible. “We're now in the steepest two-year decline in lumber consumption ever. The problem is housing - because some 75 percent of all lumber goes to building or remodeling homes. It's left us with way too much lumber on the market for the current demand, in some cases, more, to near historic lows and I believe 2008 will be flat, at best. More likely, consumption will continue to drop, by about 2 percent more.”
Many timber sales aren’t even being bid on right now due to the extremely low prices and over-supply. So why continue to open up these roadless areas and allow further road building? So it becomes even more difficult to restore the land and the road maintenance backlog grows bigger and more bloated (currently over $600 million each in both Montana and Idaho, for instance)? Good questions; questions we should be asking the Forest Service. The numbers don’t add up.
Moreover, legislation currently exists to protect the entire Northern Rockies ecosystem and end the seemingly interminable debate. So why continue to fiddle around with time consuming state plans such as Idaho’s? The Northern Rockies Ecosystem Protection Act (NREPA) would protect, as wilderness, over 20 million roadless acres in Idaho, Montana, Wyoming, and parts of eastern Oregon and Washington, effectively closing the door on these drawn-out processes while providing the prescient vision we truly need.
NREPA is grass roots legislation written by Montanans and Idahoans, contrary to some reports, over twenty years ago in an effort to protect what remains of the most intact ecosystem in the continuous US. It would enlarge wilderness cores and protect corridors that allow animals to move freely and disseminate their genes, keeping many species from becoming genetically isolated and inbred certain to eventually become extinct. It would be the most effective and far-reaching conservation effort in several decades.
NREPA would likewise allow us move on to important work such as restoration and fuel reduction near homes rather than bickering over projects and state plans such as Idaho’s. Consequently, we should be paying attention to developments and championing NREPA’s cause. It’s getting more airtime as of late and with enough pressure on lawmakers it may just have its day in the near future.
In conclusion, I ask that you join me and tell the Forest Service, and everyone you know, that we want roadless areas to remain wild and free forever. We all need to send comments and the Forest Service needs to listen. We need to tell them that removing protection for roadless areas is not acceptable at all, especially considering the current situation. We cannot accept this as the problem de jour and let it happen. The forests are worth more than we ever pay for them and they are especially worth more than the rock-bottom prices they are being offered for in today’s market. The elk, bears, marmots, woodpeckers, and trout need them more than we do and it’s certainly not worth imperiling them for defunct timber sales.
Please support continued protection of Idaho’s roadless areas, and all roadless areas for that matter, and please support NREPA. Roadless areas are invaluable and we only have one chance to get this right.
Go to http://roadless.fs.fed.us./ to find out more about roadless areas and the plans for Idaho. Send comments regarding Idaho’s forests to: IDcomments@fsroadless.org or better yet, send handwritten comments to Roadless Area Conservation-Idaho, P.O. Box 162909, Sacramento, CA
95816-2909.
Comments
The Forest Service cannot even answer its mail. Instead, they are a purely political organization run by Mark Rey, Undersecretary of Agriculture. And there appears to be no connection to President Bush through the Secretary of Agriculture.
Having spent a career in the Forest Service (1959-1993), I am pained to admit that it is just another failed government agency.
The Roadless Rule is great legislation that has wide support other than states and counties who just see dollars signs that they can generate on Federal lands.
The Roadless Rule is not and never was legislation. It does have "wide support" from preservationists who would prefer man be left out of the equation.
Jim Trenholm