Defense of Roadless Forests Continues
This summer, millions of Americans are enjoying the 58.5 million areas of unprotected roadless areas in our national forests. On August 1, lawyers representing The Wilderness Society and other groups will be in a federal courtroom to urge the judge to reject the Bush administration’s effort to repeal the rule that protects these lands. “The Roadless Area Conservation Rule was finalized in January 2001 to prohibit most road construction and logging in roadless forests, and the administration should just leave it alone,” says Mike Anderson, a nationally recognized expert on national forest policy based in our Seattle office.
Four states also have gone to court to challenge the administration: California, Oregon, Washington, and New Mexico. The attorneys general of Montana and Maine are supporting this lawsuit as friends of the court.
The administration replaced the rule with a voluntary petition process, allowing governors to request protection of roadless areas in their states. So far the governors of New Mexico, Virginia, and both Carolinas have done so.
“The most immediate threat to a roadless area is in Oregon’s Siskiyou National Forest,” notes The Wilderness Society’s Bob Freimark. “If Mikes Gulch is logged this summer as planned, it would be the first roadless area logged since the 1990s.”
