CLINTON ROADLESS AREA PROTECTION PLAN MAY LEAVE OUT ALASKAN RAINFOREST AND THE PACIFIC NORTHWEST
THE PLAN ALSO MAY EXCLUDE ROADLESS FORESTS UNDER 5000 ACRES. DECISIONS ARE BEING MADE NOW. PLEASE CALL SOON IF YOU CAN!
CLINTON ROADLESS AREA PROTECTION PLAN MAY LEAVE OUT ALASKAN RAINFOREST AND THE PACIFIC NORTHWEST
THE PLAN ALSO MAY EXCLUDE ROADLESS FORESTS UNDER 5000 ACRES. DECISIONS ARE BEING MADE NOW. PLEASE CALL SOON IF YOU CAN!
Friends,
We sent out an alert just before the holidays about the Clinton Administration's plan to protect roadless areas. Our message then was to thank the Administration for taking this important step, but to encourage them to go further by including the Tongass National Forest in Alaska and the forests under the Northwest Forest Plan, and by protecting roadless forests of 1000 acres and greater.
The Clinton Administration is now finalizing their roadless area protection plan. The most important message we need to convey at this time is that the extremely valuable roadless forests in Alaska and the Pacific Northwest can NOT be excluded from this policy. This will result in the continued degradation of many of our country's most important roadless forests, and our inability to praise what could otherwise be an historic effort.
The other message we need to get across is that the Administration should
include all of the roadless forests that scientists determine need protection. A
number of federal and private studies have determined that all unfragmented
forests 1000 acres and larger require protection. We want the Administration to
protect all roadless forests of 1000 acres or more until a scientific panel
comes up with more specific criteria. As expected, the Administration is not
likely to protect all these roadless areas. It appears that they will opt
instead to protect only those lands identified under an earlier incomplete
roadless area evaluation, RARE II, which focused largely, but not entirely, on
roadless areas larger than 5000 acres.
Still time to improve the plan
The Administration has not
made final decisions on any of these decisions yet, so there is still an
opportunity to improve this plan and include all of our roadless forests.
Vice President Gore has established himself as the political leader of this
effort. Katie McGinty, Director of the Council on Environmental Quality, is the
next most important person to call. If you can call or fax Vice President Gore,
and Katie McGinty if you are able, your effort may pay off in additional
protection for our cherished and threatened roadless forests!
Dear Vice President Gore,
On behalf of the 550,000 members of the National Audubon Society, thank you for your role in protecting some of our country's few remaining forests which have not been cut up by logging roads. These unroaded wildlands are some of the most important and rare habitat in the country, and we commend you for recognizing that the time has come to protect them. We do have some concerns about the forthcoming policy, however, and we ask your help in addressing them.
We will be unable to applaud this policy as we would like to if the Tongass National Forest and the Clinton Forest Plan lands are excluded. Further, we agree with many government scientists that protection of currently inventoried roadless areas is insufficient; criteria should be developed to determine all ecologically significant forests requiring protection. Unroaded forests 1000 acres and larger should be protected in the interim.
Protecting the most important habitats first
Protection of
unroaded forests is an excellent step toward land management that maintains the
birds, wildlife, and ecosystems which are the natural heritage of this country.
We share the belief, exhibited by this policy, that the most important habitats
should be protected first. The latest bird science shows that song birds depend
more and more on unfragmented forest reserves as much of their traditional
habitat falls to development or is invaded by predators following roads deep
into forest interiors. This trend is particularly true in the over-developed
eastern U.S.
It is also well documented that many forest species fare much better in areas without roads, especially large, reclusive, and far-ranging species. This includes predators like the grizzly bear, wolverine, lynx, and mountain lion, as well as elk, salmon, and many other species. Many such species have already disappeared from the east, and may soon be gone from the entire country if we don't protect the roadless habitats they rely on most.
Finally, people love unbroken forests, for recreation, hunting, wildlife, business opportunities, and peace of mind.
Tongass and Pacific Northwest roadless forests deserve
protection
Both the Tongass National Forest and the lands under the
Clinton Forest Plan epitomize the reasons roadless areas need protection. The
Tongass, with many roadless areas, is our last and best chance to manage a
forest right the first time. The Pacific Northwest roadless areas are some of
the most unique and spectacular in the world, in addition to being heavily
relied on by many threatened and endangered species.
The management plans for these regions, however, allow continued destruction
of these irreplaceable roadless forests. We are appealing the Tongass National
Forest Plan precisely because it does not adequately protect roadless habitat
for brown bears, wolves, and other species. The mere existence of a management
plans is not reason to exempt a region from your plan, especially when the plan
does not accomplish what the roadless area protection policy is designed to.
Science should determine extent of protection
We understand
that one likely possibility is that only those areas identified through the RARE
II inventory will be protected. While this is a step in the right direction,
many critical roadless habitats will be left vulnerable by such a plan. This is
based on scientific findings in federal and other studies that roadless areas of
1000 acres and larger, plus specific smaller areas, are vital habitat requiring
protection. We urge protection of all roadless areas of 1000 acres and greater,
at least until an independent scientific panel can develop alternative criteria.
This could be accomplished through a suspension of all logging in inventoried
roadless areas, and an analysis of proposed projects to determine if they are in
an uninventoried roadless area of 1000 acres or larger.
Mr. Gore, you recognized the scientific and public support for the EPA's new clean air regulations and you took action to implement them. You recognized the reality of global warming, and you worked to strengthen the U.S. policy on greenhouse gas emissions. There is overwhelming evidence of the scarcity and importance of roadless forests, and colossal scientific and public support for their protection. We urge you to once again step forward and do the right thing by protecting all of our country's valuable roadless forests.
We hope you can ensure that, most importantly, the roadless policy applies to
the entire country. It will be hard to applaud a plan that leaves out some of
our most cherished forests. We also hope you can help assure that this policy is
grounded in sound science, which tells us that roadless areas down to 1000 acres
need protection. We will continue to work toward protection of areas left out of
this policy that are in need of protection.