FOR
IMMEDIATE RELEASE
October 6, 2005
Contact:
Paul Hughes, (415) 974-4201; paul@forestsforever.org
Marc Lecard, (415) 974-4202; marc@forestsforever.org
Bring
Back the Roadless Area Conservation Rule!
Roadless Repeal challenged in court
San Francisco, CA: Forests Forever Foundation has joined with 19
other conservation groups and the States of California, Oregon,
and New Mexico today in calling for protection of the last wild
places in North America.
The 20 conservation groups filed a lawsuit in federal district court
in San Francisco seeking to invalidate a Bush administration decision
targeting the last, large untouched tracts of our national forests
for industrial development. The suit asks the court to reinstate
a prior rule that protected these key areas.
“The importance of roadless forests is impossible to overstate,”
said Paul Hughes, executive director of Forests Forever in San Francisco,
California. “Much of California’s clean drinking water
comes from watersheds in roadless areas. Unroaded forests provide
a refuge for wild plants and animals. And roadless forests are some
of the last places for Americans to experience wild, untouched nature.”
The original Roadless Area Conservation Rule protected 58.5 million
roadless acres of national forest from roadbuilding, logging, drilling,
mining, and other development. The roadless rule was one of the
most popular environmental rules ever written. More than 1.2 million
Americans commented on the rule after it was first proposed in 1998,
more than 95 percent of them supporting its ban on new roadbuilding
in public forests.
Despite its valuable protections, the 2001 Roadless Rule was formally
repealed by the Bush administration in May of 2005.
“Quite apart from their inestimable spiritual value as wild
forests,” Hughes said, “roadless areas are worth a tremendous
amount to the California economy for the ecosystem services they
provide, such as clean air and water, and for the recreational opportunities
they afford. It would be a tragic mistake to trade all this for
a tiny amount of revenue from logging, mining, or development.”
There are already 386,000 miles of roads on our national forests–
enough to encircle the globe 15 times. Thousands of miles of these
roads have fallen into disrepair and are sending sediment into many
of our watersheds, causing significant stream damage and water pollution.
“We can’t afford to maintain the roads that already
exist in national forests,” Hughes said. “The Forest
Service has a $10 billion backlog of road repairs. We don’t
need any more roads in our public forests.”
The Roadless Repeal also gives state governors the right to petition
the U.S. Department of Agriculture, which oversees the Forest Service,
for particular roadless area protections, though the petitions may
or may not be granted. Many governors have objected to this process
because it would be cumbersome and costly.
“The Bush repeal puts the burden on state governors to petition
to protect lands that had already been protected,” Hughes
said. “But even that is a fake. The final decision as to whether
a forest will remain roadless or not rests with the Secretary of
Agriculture, a political appointee. We need to have our public forests
returned to their real owners– the American people.”
“The original roadless rule did it best,” Hughes said.
“All roadless areas should be protected from logging and development.”
The lawsuit was filed by Earthjustice on behalf of The Wilderness
Society, California Wilderness Coalition, Forests Forever Foundation,
Northcoast Environmental Center, Oregon Natural Resources Fund,
Sitka Conservation Society, Siskiyou Regional Education Project,
Biodiversity Conservation Alliance, Sierra Club, National Audubon
Society, Greater Yellowstone Coalition, Center for Biological Diversity,
Environmental Protection Information Center, Klamath-Siskiyou Wildlands
Center, Defenders of Wildlife, Pacific Rivers Council, Idaho Conservation
League, Conservation NW, and Greenpeace. The Attorneys General of
California and New Mexico and the Governor of Oregon filed a lawsuit
challenging the Roadless Repeal on August 30, 2005.
Read
the press release from Earthjustice announcing the filing of the
lawsuit.
For
more information on the Roadless Rule and its repeal, please visit
www.earthjustice.org/campaign/display.html?ID=4
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