A coalition of over 100 local and national groups sent a letter to members of the House of Representatives asking them to oppose H.R. 1581, the Wilderness and Roadless Release Act.
If passed, the legislation would roll back existing protections and place at risk tens of millions more acres of wilderness-quality but unprotected National Forest and BLM public lands. It also prevents Congress or future administrations from using a national policy to protect these lands in the future.
The Wilderness Society has produced the most comprehensive set of comments on the Forest Service’s proposed rule on National Forest System planning. Our comments identify many ways in which the rule should be improved to protect and restore wildlife habitat, watersheds, recreational opportunities, wilderness, and other important environmental and economic values of the National Forests and Grasslands.
A decade after it was first adopted by the U.S. Forest Service, the Roadless Area Conservation Rule has proven to be remarkably successful in protecting the 58.5 million acres of national forest roadless areas from road building and logging. Only about 75 miles of road building has occurred in the roadless areas – far less than the Forest Service had predicted a decade ago -- and just a miniscule fraction of the unroaded forests has been logged, mostly in Alaska’s Tongass National Forest.
Last year, The Wilderness Society and 55 other conservation organizations delivered a letter to U.S. Forest Service Chief Tom Tidwell, outlining the damage that off-road vehicle use can cause if not prohibited in potential Wilderness areas.
These photographs and descriptions portray the damage that motorized vehicles have already caused in potential Wilderness areas in California, Idaho, Oregon and Montana. Many areas that were once pristine are now tarnished with unsightly vehicle tracks.
This week, The Wilderness Society President Bill Meadows sent a letter to U.S. Forest Service Chief Tom Tidwell, reiterating that the Forest Service maintain policies to protect land that has been recommended for Wilderness designation. The letter urges the Forest Service to prohibit off-road motorized vehicle use that can damage currently untouched wild areas.
National forests, national parks and other federally-owned forests in the Pacific Northwest and Southeast Alaska hold extraordinary amounts of carbon and therefore play an important role in defending against climate change. According to United States Forest Service data, the ten national forests in the United States that store the most carbon per forested acre are all located in western Oregon, western Washington and southeast Alaska. Moist late-successional forests west of the Cascade Range mountains are among the Earth's greatest carbon storing ecosystems.
This document is a written copy of testimony of Melyssa L. Watson, Senior Director for Wilderness, The Wilderness Society, before the House Committee on Natural Resources Subcommittee on National Parks, Forests and Public Lands. The testimony was given April 7, 2009.
