Maps Show Most Wild and Roadless Forests Still at Risk

Background: Wild and Roadless Forests Still at Risk A Logging Truck-Sized Loophole Will Public Input Matter? Before & After Maps   • California   • Florida   • Idaho   • New Mexico   • Oregon   • Southern Appalachians   • Washington

Sept. 2000--An analysis of the Forest Service's proposed roadless forest protection plan, conducted by The Wilderness Society and the Heritage Forests Campaign, suggests that between 61 and 87 percent of the roadless forest areas that President Clinton instructed the Forest Service to protect could still be logged using existing technology.

Experts note that timber can be harvested anywhere within one mile of an existing road using chainsaws, helicopters, crane-like forwarders, and sky cable systems.

In October of 1999, President Clinton directed the U.S. Forest Service to draft a wild forest protection policy that would "protect these priceless, back-country lands."

In May of 2000, however, after receiving over 500,000 citizen comments asking for an end to new road construction and logging in all remaining roadless national forest areas, the U.S. Forest Service issued a draft environmental impact statement whose "preferred alternative" would allow continued logging so long as it did not require new road construction. The Tongass rainforest in Alaska, the largest national forest in the U.S. and one of the last temperate rainforests in the world, was completely exempt under the Forest Service's "preferred alternative."

Click here for larger version and maps of other states.

Left Map: All inventoried roadless areas in the state of Oregon.

Right Map: Inventoried roadless areas in Oregon that are too far from an existing road to log using existing technologies.

Said Ken Rait, Director of the Heritage Forests Campaign, "Wild forest protection starts when the chainsaws stop. Under the Forest Service's proposal there is no guarantee that these priceless areas would receive the protection they deserve. The final policy must explicitly prohibit logging in our remaining wild forests to deliver the type of protection the President envisions and the public overwhelmingly supports." "15% is not real protection," said Bill Meadows, President of The Wilderness Society. "With as much as 85% of the wild forests lands still vulnerable to roadless logging technology, the current Forest Service proposal has loopholes large enough to drive a logging truck through. A cable system can clear cut a mountain with startling efficiency, while helicopter logging has proven profitable even at higher altitudes. Clearly substantial logging can still occur. This is not compatible with President Clinton's vision of last October, and it certainly isn't compatible with a lasting legacy of wild forests."