national forests

Obama admin delays decision on development in national forests

The Obama administration announced on Thursday that it is delaying a decision on policy that guides the construction of new roads and other development in areas of national forests for one year. An interim directive will guide land use in roadless areas in the meantime. Delayed gratification for roadless advocates. The new directive, issued by […]

Utah ORV trail system a poor model

The Paiute ATV Trail, in central Utah's Fishlake National Forest, and adjacent BLM land comprise a network of roads and "motorized trails" that have been linked and promoted for off-road vehicle recreation by public lands agencies. The routes range from custom-designed ATV-only tracks to paved roads through small towns. The majority of the trail uses ordinary dirt roads on federal public lands, sharing them with general traffic.

Its supporters promote it as a win-win model for public lands throughout the nation, bringing in tourism dollars and resulting in less damage to the landscape overall: Theory has it that when you build and sign roads for off-road use, there's no need to go off-road.

Only not. As this story in Wildlands CPR's journal The Road RIPorter states, it doesn't lead to less damage, only more: the Fishlake has a higher density of "user created" routes than do many other forests without a designated ATV-trail system. And the economic benefit to the local area is overblown: The study on its fiscal impact does not stand up to scrutiny.

My advice to these guys: Take a hike.

Roadless rule limited to 10 Western states, judge rules

A federal judge on Tuesday limited the scope of President Clinton’s popular “roadless rule” to federal lands in 10 Western states instead of the whole country, leaving some 13.6 million acres of roadless forests largely unprotected from road-building and other development. Tuesday’s ruling is a compromise between throwing the rule out and keeping protections in […]

Prowling Europe’s last lowland old growth forest

While in Poland recently for work, I took a couple days out to see the old growth forest located on the country’s eastern border with Belarus. It’s an incredible place, thick with massive oaks and a myriad of other broadleaf deciduous trees, plus boars, bison, lynx, roe deer, martens, and three packs of wolves running […]

Deal to shrink roadless areas in Idaho approved by Bush admin

An Idaho-specific plan meant to replace President Clinton’s national roadless rule in the state was agreed to Friday by the Bush administration, timber interests, and a few environmental groups. If approved by the Secretary of Agriculture after a public-comment period, the revised rule would protect just 3.3 million acres of forestlands in the state, down […]

Feds axe acreage of spotted owl habitat

The amount of old-growth forest designated as critical habitat for the northern spotted owl was slashed 23 percent, or 1.6 million acres, by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service on Tuesday. One might think that means that spotted owls are doing well for themselves, but no: the spotted owl population is dropping by 4 percent […]

Roadless rule shot down, again

The Clinton-era “roadless rule” has been declared invalid by U.S. District Judge Clarence Brimmer. The rule, which prohibits development on 58.5 million acres of national forest, has had a long and rocky past. Brimmer first put the kibosh on it in 2003, and while an appeal was pending, the Bush administration switched it out for […]

Enviros not fond of new forest management rules

The U.S. Forest Service has released new regulations for forest management that are remarkably similar to regulations that a federal judge struck down last year. Under the new rules, species’ sustainability will not be evaluated individually; instead, the focus will be on overall habitat. A coalition of green groups have sued, saying the rules loosen […]

California sues Forest Service over road building, drilling plans

California sued the U.S. Forest Service this week, claiming that it violated federal environmental laws and ignored state policies prohibiting road building in roadless areas of national forests. At stake are over 500,000 acres in four national forests in the state that the Bush administration plans to open up to road building, as well as […]