11/13/00 -- American Roadless Protection Plan Announced

***********************************************

WORLDWIDE FOREST/BIODIVERSITY CAMPAIGN NEWS

American Roadless Protection Plan Announced

***********************************************

Forest Networking a Project of Forests.org

http://forests.org/ -- Forest Conservation Portal

http://forests.org/web/ -- Discuss Forest Conservation

11/13/00

OVERVIEW & COMMENTARY

The long anticipated Clinton administration plan to give additional

protection to roadless areas in America's National Forest has been

unveiled in near final form. The reviews of the plan are generally

positive, as it was strengthened from draft versions to include

Alaska's Tongass National Forest, thus expanding protection to some

58.5 million acres. This represents a major victory for our

movement's lobbying efforts. The plan prohibits most road building

in this vast area, but falls short in offering protection from some

other degrading land uses. Logging is allowed for "stewardship"

purposes, defined as maintaining or improving habitats, i.e. for

endangered species. Damaging use of these biologically important

reserves by off road vehicles is not strictly prohibited. The

Tongass' protection does not come into effect until 2004, allowing

critical old-growth ecosystems to be commercially harvested until

then, and making it more likely that protections will be overturned.

These potential loopholes may come back to haunt us and must be

corrected. Nonetheless, in this case President Clinton deserves the

benefit of the doubt, as he has implemented a laborious process

through political mine fields that appears likely to deliver

significant protection to some of America's last relatively pristine

landscapes. The plan can still be revised until approved in its

final form in December. In coming days I will forward an action

alert to remedy the remaining weaknesses in this U.S. roadless

protection plan, while praising Clinton and the forest service for

having made much needed improvements from earlier drafts. The plan

as it now stands can be found at http://roadless.fs.fed.us/ .

g.b.

*******************************

RELAYED TEXT STARTS HERE:

ITEM #1

Title: Alaska forest added to roadless plan

Date: November 13, 2000

In a major win for environmentalists, the Clinton administration has

added Alaska's Tongass National Forest - the nation's largest - to a

protection plan for some of America's most pristine lands.

The plan covers 58.5 million acres of national forests that do not

have roads. It prohibits road-building; bans logging except when such

activity is deemed to help maintain or improve areas; seeks to

improve habitats for threatened, endangered or sensitive species; and

attempts to reduce the risk of severe wildfires.

Environmentalists have been pressing for years for a road ban because

they believe the pathways increase erosion, disrupt wildlife habitat

and make it easier for logging trucks and mining operators to reach

remote public lands.

A draft of the plan in May covered 43 million acres - an area the

size of Washington state - but delayed until 2004 a decision on

whether to include the 8.5 million roadless acres in the Tongass.

Under the new plan, the protections would be extended to the Tongass

in 2004.

Administration officials released the new version of the plan Monday

after receiving an avalanche of comments at public hearings and

through written correspondence, mainly from environmentalists

seeking a broader plan.

"Never before have the American people so actively participated in

helping to decide how their public lands should be managed,"

Agriculture Secretary Dan Glickman said in a statement released

prior to a news conference. "The fact that more than 1.5 million

comments were received from Americans show that these truly are all

of the people's lands, not just a few, and they care deeply about how

they are cared for."

Environmentalists had been hopeful the outpouring would prompt the

Clinton administration to expand the plan, and expressed satisfaction

with the changes.

"The administration really has responded to the public by moving

this forward," said Ken Rait, director of the Heritage Forests

Campaign in Portland, Oregon.

Forest industry officials said many people who want the option of

building roads did not comment because they felt Forest Service

officials already had made up their minds.

Barry Polsky, a spokesman for the American Forest and Paper

Association, contended the plan will increase the risk of fire and

bug infestation in forests.

Monday's announcement is the next-to-last step in the process for

crafting a roadless rule without the involvement of Congress. Agency

officials will decide whether to make still more changes before they

publish a final rule in mid-December, just a month before President

Clinton leaves office.

ITEM #2

Title: Federal Plan for Roadless Forests Allows Some Logging

Date: November 13, 2000

WASHINGTON, DC, November 13, 2000 (ENS) - The U.S. Forest Service

today unveiled its preferred plan for protecting nearly 60 million

acres of roadless lands in American's national forest system. The

plan provides a detailed framework for a major environmental

initiative announced more than a year ago by President Bill Clinton.

The Forest Service's preferred plan, one of several alternatives in a

final environmental impact statement, would immediately prohibit most

roadbuilding and timber harvesting in 49.2 million acres of roadless

areas that are already listed by the service as unroaded. That

acreage would increase to 58.5 million acres in April 2004 when the

Tongass National Forest would be included.

The preferred plan would still allow for "stewardship" logging on

those lands, which the Forest Service says would be authorized only

to "reduce the risk of uncharacteristically severe fire," or to

improve forest habitat for threatened or endangered wildlife.

The Forest Service's chosen plan would extend those same protections

to the largest national forest in the United States, the Tongass

National Forest in Alaska. An earlier draft of the Forest Service's

plan would have delayed any decision on protecting the Tongass until

that same date.

Forest Service Chief Mike Dombeck was quick to defend the proposal,

which industry groups and motorized recreation enthusiasts have

criticized for being too restrictive and exclusionary.

"Conservation leadership requires that we stand up for the values and

lands entrusted to our care by the American people," Dombeck said.

Non-governmental environmental groups expressed a variety of

reactions to the Forest Service proposal. The Sierra Club, one of the

world's largest conservation organizations, hailed the plan as a

"significant improvement" over the draft that the Forest Service

issued in May.

"This summer, more than a million Americans called on the Forest

Service to fully protect the remaining unspoiled fragments of our

National Forests, and the Forest Service clearly heard that cry, said

Sierra Club executive director Carl Pope.

Pope praised environmental activists for working to influence the

revised plan, which the Forest Service drafted after holding more

than 600 public meetings across the United States. Hundreds of

thousands of people participated in the public process, which

generated more than 1.6 million written and oral comments that the

Forest Service considered in issuing its preferred alternative.

Due in large part to those comments, the Forest Service was pressured

to close a "loophole" in its earlier draft, which would have banned

roadbuilding but not helicopter or other types of logging in pristine

roadless areas, Pope said.

Still, Pope expressed concern over the "stewardship" logging

provision contained in the proposal. The term "stewardship" Pope

said, could open another "loophole" that could pave the way for the

type of ill advised logging that resulted from the passage of the

infamous 1995 salvage timber rider.

Pope also expressed disappointment with the four year delay in

extending protections to the Tongass National Forest, where some 80

percent of all new logging roads are slated to be constructed over

the course of the next few years.

Matt Zencey of the Alaska Rainforest Campaign, an environmental group

based in Anchorage, Alaska, worries that if unprotected now the

Tongass National Forest will be gutted in the next four years.

"Protecting the Tongass in 2004 is an improvement over the earlier

version, but exempting [it] for four years will devastate huge tracts

of irreplaceable old growth," Zencey said. "Protection delayed is

protection denied."

Full and immediate protection for the Tongass was one of the most

commonly articulated requests made of the Forest Service during the

public comment period. That position was also expressed to President

Bill Clinton by more than 330 eminent scientists, who in a letter

declared that there is "no scientific basis" for excluding the

Tongass from the protections of the roadless initiative.

President Clinton has 30 days to make changes in the Forest Service's

final roadless area rules. Marty Hayden of the Earthjustice Legal

Defense Fund is just one of many environmentalists who is urging the

President to do so - before it is too late.

"With a hostile presidential administration potentially on the

horizon, the Tongass now more than ever needs full and immediate

protection," said Hayden, referring to the possibility that Texas

Governor George W. Bush might prevail in the nation's still undecided

Presidential election.

Bush, the Republican Party's nominee, has been critical of the

roadless initiative backed by the Clinton administration. Vice

President Al Gore, who is hoping that yet another recount of

Florida's ballots will propel him into the White House, has been a

leading supporter of the roadless initiative.

Other environmental groups expressed similar reactions to the newly

unveiled roadless plan. Anne Martin, field director of the national

American Lands Alliance, said that the nation cannot leave its last

and best pristine forests to the "whims of the shifty political winds

that are now blowing."

"We are hopeful that in his final analysis, President Clinton will

strengthen the final proposal by restricting, in his plan,

potentially damaging 'stewardship' logging activities that would be

allowed under the Forest Service proposal," Martin said.

In addition to the stewardship logging loophole, the proposal

provides no controls for off road vehicles that can devastate

pristine roadless areas, Martin warned.

Steve Holmer, American Lands' campaign coordinator, said that Clinton

would warrant "the most important lands conservation legacy of the

last 100 years" if he can muster the political courage to close the

loopholes in the proposal before leaving office.

"A strong roadless area policy is one of the most important legacies

we can leave for our children," Holmer said. "We urge the Forest

Service and President Clinton to heed this massive outpouring of

public support in favor of complete protection, before the

opportunity is lost."

Matthew Koehler of the Montana based Native Forest Network was more

pointed in his criticisms of the proposal, arguing that it falls "far

short" of the protections that are warranted. Koehler said that as

long as the Forest Service's budget is linked to logging, mining and

other extractive endeavors, it will never act to properly protect the

nation's forest.

"Unfortunately, we will see the American people get the short end of

the stick and our National Forests degraded until the Forest Service

gets out of the lumber and mining business," Koehler said.

Agriculture Secretary Dan Glickman will decide on a final Forest

Service roadless plan in December.

The four volume environmental impact study is available online at:

http://roadless.fs.fed.us.

###RELAYED TEXT ENDS###

In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is

distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior

interest in receiving forest conservation informational materials for

educational, personal and non-commercial use only. Recipients should

seek permission from the source to reprint this PHOTOCOPY. All

efforts are made to provide accurate, timely pieces, though ultimate

responsibility for verifying all information rests with the reader.

For additional forest conservation news & information please see the

Forest Conservation Portal at URL= http://forests.org/

Networked by Forests.org, Inc., gbarry@forests.org