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 he American
Lands Alliance urged the Clinton Administration last month to
beef up the Forest Service's interim policy to preserve America's
unprotected forests. Despite President Clinton's promise to protect
the nation's last wild forests, the Service's plan leaves many
of those forests vulnerable to logging road construction, timber
harvesting and development activities. Other wild areas would
only be given an 18-month reprieve from logging roads.
 "President Clinton said
science, not politics, should guide management for these remaining
wild forests. But the Forest Service's policy, influenced more
by political science than biological science, passes over some
of our most cherished forests," said Brian Vincent, California
Organizer for American Lands.
At stake are 60 million acres,
or about 30 percent of the National Forest system, still wild
and roadless, but unprotected from logging, mining, and oil and
gas drilling and the destructive roads such activities require.
These areas provide unmatched opportunities for camping, hiking
and other recreational pursuits, valuable habitat for fish and
wildlife, and abundant supplies of clean drinking water. Forest
Chief Mike Dombeck received more than 70,000 public comments
supporting wilderness when the initiative was announced in January,
1998. Although Dombeck announced in a speech February 3 in Missoula,
Montana, that he believes "the Forest Service will rarely
build new roads into roadless areas," the policy unveiled
this week contains no requirement that such areas be protected.
The policy exempts vast tracts
of National Forest lands in Alaska, the Pacific Northwest, and
elsewhere, neglects smaller, ecologically significant roadless
forests, and still allows some types of logging, such as helicopter
logging, and other damaging activities like grazing and mining
that would not involve road building.
And, there is no guarantee
areas covered by the policy would receive permanent protection.
Under the interim plan, some roadless areas in the Sierra Nevada
deserving protection will not be spared from logging and road
building. In the Tahoe National Forest, for example, Devils Canyon,
which contains the largest stand of old growth trees in Nevada
County, Lafayette Ridge, which also has old growth, and an area
near Downieville, important springs habitat, could be logged
and roaded because they are less than the 5,000 acre minimum
requirement set by the policy.
The Service Currently is developing
a four-pronged approach to: 1) develop new ways to build roads;
2) remove some existing roads; 3) upgrade some existing roads;
and 4) determine how to pay for the roads. The four goals, however,
ignore the underlying direction for the policy provided by President
Clinton when he stated, "the Forest Service is developing
a scientifically based policy for managing roadless areas in
our national forests. These last remaining wild areas are precious
to millions of Americans and key to protecting clean water and
abundant wildlife habitat, and providing recreation opportunities.
These unspoiled places must be managed through science, not politics."
"The real test will come
when the Administration completes its final policy," Vincent
said. "If that policy is nothing more than a new way to
build roads in our last unspoiled forests instead of affording
those special places permanent protection, it will be an utter
failure." 
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