Roadless Campaign Updates

Victory for roadless forests! Court moves to protect national forest roadless areas

Fri, 21 Oct 2011 21:36:33 +0000

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More than ten years after President Clinton banned roads and logging on the last roadless areas on our nation’s forests, the Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals has the final say — 49 million acres of America’s national forests will remain wild under the Roadless Rule.

The U.S. Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals issued a ruling Oct. 21 that permanently protects some 49 million acres of forests covered by Clinton’s 2001 Roadless Area Conservation Rule. The ruling, a result of a lawsuit in which Earthjustice intervened on behalf of The Wilderness Society and other conservation groups, should put an end to a decade-long legal battle waged by the timber industry, Bush administration and the states of Alaska, Idaho and Wyoming.

The landmark Roadless Area Conservation Rule was adopted by the U.S. Forest Service on Jan. 12, 2001, after the most extensive public involvement in the history of federal rulemaking. It generally prohibited road construction and timber cutting in 58.5 million acres of inventoried roadless areas, about 30 percent of the National Forest System. But the rule was immediately subjected to legal challenges and attacks by the Bush Administration, which sought to open the lands up to unneeded timber production and other destructive activities.

Those of you who have supported our conservation efforts throughout this battle should be pleased to know that, despite the multi-year effort to undermine the Roadless Rule, the vast majority of the roadless forests remain untouched and wild today.

“The win in the U.S. Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals is a great victory that validates the massive support of millions of Americans for protecting roadless forests and removes the clouds of legal uncertainty from this issue,” said William H. Meadows, president of The Wilderness Society. “This is a day for celebration for everyone who cherishes our roadless forests for their scenic beauty, clean water supplies, recreational opportunities and wildlife habitat.”

National forests play a vital role in protecting supplies of clean drinking water — holding the headwaters that provide drinking water to millions of people across the country. In addition, roadless forests preserve high-quality habitat for many kinds of fish and wildlife.

A study by the Forest Service shows that recreation activities on national forests and grasslands have helped to sustain an estimated 223,000 jobs in rural areas and contributed approximately $14.5 billion annually to the U.S. economy.

Currently, the 2001 Roadless Rule is in effect nationwide except in Idaho, where different regulations apply. Thus, the Forest Service may not undertake activities that violate the Roadless Rule on 49 million out of the 58.5 million total acres of inventoried roadless areas. A lawsuit by The Wilderness Society and other conservation groups challenging the Idaho exemption is pending in a federal appeals court. The Wilderness Society is also intervening in a lawsuit challenging the Roadless Rule that the State of Alaska recently filed in the District of Columbia federal court.

“The Tenth Circuit’s decision greatly helps to clarify and solidify the nationwide protections provided by the Roadless Rule,” said Mike Anderson, a senior resource analyst in The Wilderness Society’s Seattle office. “We still have a ways to go to restore protection for roadless areas in Idaho, which the Bush administration exempted from the rule. We will continue our efforts to ensure full protection of all roadless areas.”

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Photo: Chattooga River in the Rock Gorge Roadless Area of Sumter National Forest in South Carolina. Photo by Butch Clay.

Stand up to Congress! Don’t allow industry to buy out our wilderness

Fri, 23 Sep 2011 15:52:05 +0000

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How is it that an oil and gas industry rolling in profits can manage to receive government subsidies and tax breaks while conservation programs that are only a small part of the federal budget are threatened with the ax as Congress attempts to balance America’s budget?

The answer is it takes money to make money. And that’s exactly what oil and gas, timber and other extractive industries have in spades. These profit-rich, polluting industries have lobbied the heck out of Washington, D.C. As a result we've seen a year full of Congressional attempts to undermine environmental and conservation laws, open pristine and protected areas to oil and gas drilling, and undercut funding to environmental programs.

Congress is also attempting to cut crucial funding for fuel efficient cars and the renewable energy industry – two programs that create jobs and would help us decrease our dependence on oil.

The current Congress is one of the most anti-wilderness Congresses we’ve seen in years.

In the months ahead you can help us fight off some of the most extreme cuts to conservation in recent history.

As Congress attempts to balance the budget, it is likely to include draconian cuts to conservation programs, despite the fact that these priceless programs help keep our most pristine wildlands intact and thus contribute billions to our economy through recreation and tourism. These are jobs that support local communities all across the country and cannot be exported.

Here’s just a sampling of what will happen if we don’t continue to push back:

-Slashed funding for national parks, monuments and forests. These places may now have to close their doors to visitors because agency staff will no longer be able to maintain them.

-Massive cuts to America’s wildlife refuge system. More than 100 wildlife refuges could be closed, eliminating outdoor education programs and severely limiting access to hunting and fishing sites.

- America’s outdoor recreation economy harmed. Our outdoor recreation industry fuels our economy to the tune of $730 billion annually, according to the Outdoor Industry Association. It also contributes more than 6.5 million jobs to local communities. This industry is dependent upon our wild lands staying wild.

- Near complete elimination of the Land and Water Conservation Fund. This is one of the most effective open space, wild land, and outdoor recreation protection programs, using funds from off-shore oil and gas leases to protect special areas. But Congress is proposing to slash the fund to $90 million a year, down from the $900 million it's entitled to.

Please help us stand up to Congress, big oil and other industries who wish to exploit our lands for their personal gain. Donate today.

Prince of Wales Island, Alaska: Bring back the salmon!

Thu, 18 Aug 2011 19:23:09 +0000

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On Prince of Wales Island in Southeast Alaska, a coalition of conservation organizations, including The Wilderness Society, is working with partners to undo the damage caused by decades of clearcut logging in the Tongass National Forest—logging that had devastated the massive salmon runs on Prince of Wales Island’s Harris River.

Next week, after years of work, the U.S. Forest Service and conservation groups will celebrate the ongoing watershed restoration in the Harris River watershed on Prince of Wales Island.

From the 1960s through 1987, 4,669 acres of the Harris River watershed were subjected to clearcut logging, including nearly half of the riparian areas. Logging and road building changed how fallen trees shaped the waterways, and allowed sediment to choke nearby streams, kill fish and destroy wildlife habitat. In 2000, the Harris River, along with its main tributary, Fubar Creek, became a focal point for watershed restoration and a top restoration priority for the U.S. Forest Service and a coalition of conservation organizations who wanted to see this Prince of Wales Island river once again produce the massive salmon runs of its past.

Since then, 11 miles of stream bank have been stabilized, more than 500 acres of new forest growth has been thinned, and 350 whole trees and logs have been added to the stream channel to provide spawning and rearing habitat for salmon in Fubar Creek. Restoring salmon streams is of key importance because the Tongass, including Prince of Wales Island, is responsible for annually producing millions of fish that support a thriving commercial fishing industry, sport-fishing-related tourism, and important local subsistence fisheries.

Recently, salmon have been observed in parts of Fubar Creek that were not accessible to them before the restoration efforts began.

On Aug. 25, the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Under Secretary for Natural Resources and Environment, Harris Sherman, will join U.S. Forest Service officials and their partners in the Alaska conservation community for a tour of the restoration site before an evening dinner and ceremony marking the achievements of this watershed restoration effort on Prince of Wales Island.

The Wilderness Society is a proud supporter of this restoration project. Its benefits will go beyond salmon as the U.S. Forest Service transitions the Tongass National Forest from boom-and-bust, old growth logging to a sustainable economic model based on restoration, fishing and tourism.

Thanks to the Harris River watershed restoration project, the salmon – and therefore the people – of Prince of Wales Island have a brighter future.

Debt-ceiling deal passes; wildlands, environment to suffer

Wed, 03 Aug 2011 20:43:06 +0000

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Congress’ Great Outdoors Giveaway continued this week with the Aug. 2 passage of a debt-ceiling deal that will make it significantly more difficult for the government to invest in conservation funding over the next ten years.

This threat to conservation is part of a recent large-scale effort by some in Congress to give away our great outdoors to corporate polluters and developers. And rather than helping America rein in the deficit, the debt-ceiling deal will create an environmental debt that we can’t repay.

“The reductions in spending the deal causes will result in massive cuts that threaten to damage our water, our air and our lands beyond repair,” said Wilderness Society President William H. Meadows.

But alarmingly, the debt-ceiling bill is only a part of a large-scale, unprecedented attack on wildland protections in Congress this year.

Another bill being debated in the House would drastically cut, and in some cases defund, longstanding, critical conservation programs. This House Interior Appropriations bill is teeming with provisions that seriously threaten wildlands and human health.

Just a few examples of the many alarming things this bill would do:

Close wildlife refuges: The bill would force up to 25 percent of our wildlife refuges to close.

Gut the Endangered Species Act: Limitations on programs like the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s listing of endangered species.

Leave rivers and streams unprotected: One such provision eliminates requirements for chemical companies to obtain permits for pesticides entering rivers and streams.

Expose citizens to even more power plant pollution: Another provision, the Cross-State Air Pollution rider prohibits the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) from implementing a rule to protect communities from pollution caused by power plants upwind of them. The EPA estimates that this rule would prevent up to 34,000 premature deaths, 15,000 heart attacks, 400,000 cases of aggravated asthma, and 1.8 million sick days a year beginning in 2014.

Slash other important conservation programs: For example, the Land and Water Conservation Fund, a federal program which takes revenues from Big Oil to purchase and protect special wild areas, would be cut to its lowest funding levels in history.

Fortunately, work on the Interior Appropriations bill will be postponed until after the August recess, but make no mistake that anti-wilderness foes will be back at it again come September and we will need your help to stop them.

Moving forward, a new Congressional committee will be formed to identify more deficit reduction, and we’ll be urging them to target programs like tax subsidies to polluters rather than funds that protect our clean air and water.

Congress needs to hear from you. Please consider attending town hall meetings or local events for your Congressional representatives this August and make sure they know that Americans don’t want to balance the budget on the back of our last wild places. Urge your member of Congress to protect the environment when it returns to Washington in September to finalize a budget for next year.

If you don’t have a chance to speak with your representatives, there is yet another anti-conservation effort you can help us fend off. An anti-wilderness bill is moving its way through Congress. That bill, introduced by Rep. Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., would open up tens of millions of acres of pristine lands to logging, oil and gas development, mining and other industrial development. We are hard at work to stop this bill in its tracks and we need your help. Click here to take action.

Together, these attacks on our environment are the most unprecedented assault on our air, water, land and wildlife in our nation’s history. To fight back, we must speak with one voice that protecting the environment is an investment in the future of our country, and we cannot balance this country’s check book on the backs of our natural heritage.