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USDA Forest Service Acts To Conserve Roadless Areas In National Forests

May 2005 - - The USDA has issued a final rule that invites input from state governors in the conservation and management direction for inventoried roadless areas within national forests. This rule will provide environmental benefits and help to ensure that the needs of local communities are considered in roadless area conservation. The new rule was developed after the previous regulation, issued January 12, 2001, was struck down by a U.S. District Court in July 2003 and deemed in violation of both the National Environmental Policy Act and the Wilderness Act.

The rule sets a straightforward, collaborative path toward conserving inventoried roadless areas by working with the states on regulations specific to the needs and requirements of each state. It incorporates the department's five conservation principles for inventoried roadless areas. They are:

Make informed decisions to ensure that inventoried roadless area management is implemented with reliable information and accurate mapping, including local expertise and experience.
Work with states, tribes, local communities and the public through a process that is fair, open and responsive to local input and information.
Protect forests to ensure that the potential negative effects of severe wildfire, insect and disease activity are addressed.
Protect communities, homes and property from the risk of severe wildfire and other risks on adjacent federal lands.
Ensure that states, tribes and private citizens who own property within inventoried roadless areas have access to their property as required by existing law.

The rule allows governors to petition the secretary of agriculture to develop regulations to manage roadless areas that meet the specific needs within each state. USDA will accept state petitions from governors for 18 months after the effective date of the final rule. During the state-petitioning process, the Forest Service will continue to maintain interim measures to conserve inventoried roadless areas.

Petitions must identify areas for inclusion and may also include ways to protect public health and safety, reduce wildfire risks to communities and critical wildlife habitat, maintain critical infrastructure (such as dams and utilities), and ensure that citizens have access to private property.

Once a state has submitted its petition and the secretary accepts it, the Forest Service will work with the state to develop and publish a subsequent state-specific rule that addresses the management requirements set forth in the petition. The state-specific rulemaking process will include any required National Environmental Policy Act analysis and invite public input during a notice and comment period. If a state chooses not to file a petition, inventoried roadless areas within that state will continue to be managed in accordance with the direction set forth in each national forest's land and resource management plan.

While 38 states and Puerto Rico have inventoried roadless areas on National Forest System lands within their boundaries, 56.6 million acres, or 97 percent, of all inventoried roadless areas in the country are contained within 12 states. Those states are Alaska, Arizona, California, Colorado, Idaho, Montana, Nevada, New Mexico, Oregon, Utah, Washington and Wyoming.

The department is also announcing the establishment of a national advisory committee to provide advice and recommendations to the secretary on implementing this rule. Members of the committee will represent diverse national organizations interested in the conservation and management of National Forest System inventoried roadless areas.

The final rule and the notice announcing the establishment of the advisory committee will be published in the Federal Register this week and are available at www.roadless.fs.fed.us.

(Source: USDA)

Alaska Tongass Forest Debate

The Tongass National Forest is a coastal rain forest that covers about 17 million acres of southeastern Alaska. The federal government is attempting to support the U.S. timber industry in Alaska by providing subsidies and excluding the Tongass from the Roadless Rule. Even with the subsidy, local logging companies are struggling to make a profit.

Just before leaving office, Clinton issued a rule barring road building and commercial logging on 58.5 million acres, or nearly one-third, of the country's national forest land.

Logging company owners and Forest Service officials believe the timber industry in southeast Alaska is at risk of disappearing. They believe that lumber can be produced at a profit, but decades of environmental lawsuits and contradictory federal rules have made it impossible to run a business that can compete in a global market. Traditional environmental groups believe that large-scale logging in the Tongass is ecologically destructive and not cost-effective.

The U.S. Forest Service logging program is costing the federal government about $35 million more than it collects in annual timber sales. Logging company owners and Forest Service officials believe those sales are uneconomic because they are on inaccessible terrain and are too far from sawmills.

World competition in the forest products industry has hurt the Alaska timber industry. Cheap timber from Russia and South America has conspired to make logging in the Tongass even less competitive. Global competition forced the closure of pulp mills, the loss of thousands of jobs and the loss of millions of board feet in logging volume in 2003. Only three large lumber mills are still operating in southeast Alaska.

The timber industry has also been hurt by the rise of a profitable cruise ship business in southeastern Alaska. Tourism and recreation have long since overtaken logging as the region's primary employers and engine of growth. Cruise ships have made the forest an eco-destination for tens of thousands of summertime tourists.

The Bush administration exempted the Tongass from Clinton's Roadless Rule in December 2004 and on July 12, 2004 proposed overturning the rule in all federal forests. According to Agriculture Secretary Ann M. Veneman, the abolition of the Roadless Rule will end litigation and encourage cooperation between state and federal officials.

Companies that bid on timber from national forests can now cancel the purchase because Senator Ted Stevens (R-Alaska), chairman of the Appropriations Committee, attached a rider to a 2003 appropriations bill making these contractual escapes possible. In 2004, the federal government allowed local companies to walk away from 10 timber sales.

Traditional environmental groups believe that there is more than enough timber available from existing roads to fully supply the timber industry at levels they have been cutting in recent years without building new roads. They believe that the Forest Service, in part to justify its own large payroll in southeast Alaska (about 500 employees), chronically overstates market demand and wastes money preparing timber sales that are not needed.