| An equally small percentage of America's public land remains in a wild condition, but without any official protection for long term. Those areas are called "roadless areas." In our local region, there are many popular and spectacular roadless areas that lie within the boundaries of the Stanislaus National Forest. The high Sonora Pass area on the south side of Highway 108 is called the Night roadless area. The area that stretches from the Highway all the way across the crest zone to the Clark Fork Road is called the Bald Peak roadless area. Each of these areas and other local roadless areas contain thousands of acres of pristine forests, wonderful wildlife habitat, and outstanding opportunities for recreation, spiritual renewal, and wildlife viewing or wildflower photography. Yet local roadless areas do not have any long term protection.
|
LATEST UPDATE ON ROADLESS RULE
FORESTS: Bush admin wades into roadless rule legal mess
Noelle Straub, Greenwire reporter (Greenwire)
Saying the Forest Service faces a "Hobbesian choice" over which of two opposite court rulings to disobey on the roadless area conservation rule, the Bush administration is pleading with two federal judges to at least temporarily lift their conflicting orders.
Attorneys for the Justice Department filed motions this week with both U.S. District Judge Clarence Brimmer in Wyoming and California Magistrate Judge Elizabeth Laporte asking them to suspend their injunctions because the Forest Service faces contempt of court no matter which way it acts.
"The United States Forest Service is confronted with injunctions simultaneously requiring it to follow and prohibiting it from following the 2001 Roadless Rule, leaving the agency with the Hobbesian choice of which injunction to violate," the administration motions say.
Staying the injunctions would "eliminate the spectre of contempt that now haunts the agency," administration lawyers wrote.
Brimmer ruled Aug. 12 that the roadless rule, which granted blanket protection to about 58 million acres of federal land nationwide, violated federal law and issued a permanent injunction against it, as requested by Wyoming.
Brimmer had first struck down the Clinton rule in 2003. Environmental groups appealed his ruling, but before that dispute was settled, the Bush administration decided to issue its own new policy for roadless areas that allowed states to petition for roadless protections.
That policy also faced legal challenges, and Laporte threw out the Bush plan in 2006 and reinstated the Clinton rule. Wyoming again sought to block the roadless rule, resulting in Brimmer's recent ruling. A separate appeal of Laporte's ruling is pending before the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.
An administration motion now asks Brimmer to either stay his injunction nationwide or at least outside of Wyoming pending resolution of the legal issues.
"Defendants respectfully believe that in issuing a nation-wide injunction against the 2001 Roadless Rule, when more limited injunctive relief was adequate to address Wyoming's injury, this Court misapprehended the controlling law and committed clear legal error," the Bush lawyers wrote in that case. Wyomingand the Colorado Mining Association oppose the Bush request to Brimmer, but the Wilderness Society supports it.
The administration also asked that Laporte's injunction either be lifted entirely, since the Wyoming court "invalidated" the roadlessrule, or that it be stayed temporarily while the appeal is resolved. It could be stayed either nationwide, outside the boundaries of the plaintiff states -- California, New Mexico, Oregon and Washington -- or just within the boundaries of Wyoming, the motion said.
A hearing on that motion is scheduled for Sept. 30 before Laporte. The appeal in that case is set for argument Oct. 20 before the 9th Circuit.
The California Association of 4 Wheel Drive Clubs, Silver Creek Timber Co. and related groups generally support the Bush request to Laporte.The Wilderness Society strongly opposes any effort to lift her injunction requiring the Forest Service to comply with the roadless rule.
|
It is a great blow to both the environment and to taxpayers whenever roadless areas are opened to new logging and road-building. Preserving roadless areas makes sense from both an economic and environmental perspective. Building logging roads into wild places almost always loses money for taxpayers, and it always harms the natural habitat values of a wild area. In addition, the Forest Service already has more than 400,000 miles of roads within America's national forests... far more than it can afford to maintain. We don't need any more roads. We definitely DO need the remaining precious roadless wildlands that help compensate for many other areas that have been destroyed, altered, or degraded.
CSERC continues to serve as a strong voice for preserving all local wild areas in their natural condition. Wild values benefit not only the environment, but also the countless generations of humans still to come. Our descendents will find such wild places to be of unmeasurable value, beauty, and delight -- but only if current Americans are vigilant in preserving our current wild places.
|
|
Wild At Heart Report
Our Center and other environmental groups of our region of the Sierra Nevada recognize the incredible value that wild places hold for wildlife, as pristine watersheds, as sanctuaries for rare plants, and as highly popular recreational destinations. Literally millions of visits are made to roadless areas in California each year by people seeking pristine beauty, solitude, and challenging recreation.
This "Wild at Heart Report" underscores why America needs to draw a line in the sand and be firm in preserving the remaining unprotected wild places on federal lands across our country. Leaving them intact and undisturbed saves taxpayers money. It benefits wildlife, and it preserves these precious places as a wild heritage for future generations.
CSERC encourages visitors to this site to read this report and consider ways to aid our Center and other organizations that work so diligently to protect and preserve our remaining wild places.
Please click here to view the report
|
If you would like to find out more about wildland preservation, be sure to contact us (info@cserc.org) or sign-up for CSERC's quarterly newsletter.
When you and many others take the time to make your views known, you help CSERC to be effective at keeping bulldozers, chainsaws, and other harmful human activities out of the remaining precious wildlands of our local region. Join CSERC in our mission to preserve local pristine gems in our spectacular mountains. |
