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Roadless Areas are Sanctuaries
for People & Wildlife

 
In this section:
  Roadless Areas are Sanctuaries for People and Wildlife
  Court Ruling Keeps Roadless Area Protections in Place- 11/8/11
  The Cost of Losing Roadless Areas
  Roadless Areas in the Northern Yosemite Region

Lindsey enjoying roadless area recreation     Why are "roadless areas" important and worth saving?  The vast, overwhelming majority of America and California has already been developed.  Thousands of miles of roads literally create a spider's web of sprawling impacts across the landscape.  Roads bring logging, mining, dam construction, powerlines, development, poaching, and the introduction of non-native plants and animals.  A small percentage of America has been officially preserved in its wild condition as wilderness - primarily the rock and ice of high elevation mountain ranges or the crown jewels of desert lands.

      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.



COURT RULING KEEPS ROADLESS AREA
PROTECTIONS IN PLACE

11.8.11

     In 2001, the Roadless Area Conservation Rule was adopted after members of the public submitted more than 2 million comments and after hundreds of public hearings were held.  The Roadless Rule required the U.S. Forest Service to restrict road building, logging, and development within nearly 50 million acres of pristine national forest lands.

     The original 2001 rule was struck down in 2005 by the Bush administration, which offered an alternative that allowed states to petition to build roads and do logging on national forest land. Legal challenges to this change kept all but a tiny handful of projects from being built.

     After years of legal battles in the court, a major decision on October 21, 2011 by the Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals reinforced a previous decision by a federal court in California in 2006.  The Tenth Circuit decision affirmed the validity of the Roadless Rule – thereby ensuring that the vast majority of roadless areas in national forest lands all across the lower 48 states will continue to stay wild and pristine.

     Two other legal actions affecting roadless areas remain pending: the first challenges application of the Roadless Rule to national forest lands in the state of Alaska, and the second is a lawsuit challenging a less protect rule that applies only to federal roadless lands in the state of Idaho.

     CSERC has worked for many years to promote the incredibly high value of keeping roadless wild areas free from development, roads, logging, or other abusive activities.   Roadless areas contain all the natural puzzle pieces of an ecosystem, including rare plants and animals that may have completely disappeared in more developed areas.   Roadless areas also have a spiritual and recreational benefit for countless people who often wait all year for their trip into a wild place to savor connections with the beauty of nature.   Roadless wild areas are also important to protect because as long as they are undeveloped, they are eligible to become official wilderness areas if Congress acts at some in the future to designate them.

     CSERC staff continues to monitor roadless areas within the Stanislaus National Forest and to advocate in support of permanent protection for these priceless wild blocks of intact ecological puzzle pieces.

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The Cost of Losing Roadless Areas

::::private:var:folders:+k:+kl41nO3GMWa6MbdGI4XhE+++TQ:-Tmp-:com.apple.mail.drag-T0x710d40.tmp.50IVLD:Eagle wlflwr pic.jpg  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.


Roadless Areas in our Region

     Roadless areas in the local national forest reflect a wide diversity of scenic habitats and recreational opportunities. From the crest of the mountain range down into the deep canyons carved by local rivers, roadless wildlands in the Stanislaus National Forest contain beauty, diverse habitats, and a great variety of wildlife.  These roadless areas range from arid, sparsely vegetated brushy slopes on rocky canyon walls to extremely lush wet meadows and lake areas across the upper forests.   Crest zone peaks rise against deep blue skies in the high country, while thundering rivers dominate the canyons of the lower areas.  

North Fork Mokelumne roadless area lies the furthest north along the North Fork Mokelumne River on the canyon wall south of Salt Springs reservoir.  

Tryon Peak and Pacific Valley roadless areas extend north of the Carson-Iceberg Wilderness.

North Fork Stanislaus-Shoofly roadless area includes two broad stretches of river canyon in the middle and north forks of the Stanislaus River.  

Bald Peak, Night, Eagle, and Waterhouse roadless areas are high elevation rugged wild areas stretching from the Sonora Pass west to upslope from Pinecrest Lake.   Each of these roadless areas touch the Emigrant Wilderness.  

Bell roadless area lies to the south of Dodge Ridge and includes scenic Bell Meadow and Pine Valley.  

Cherry Bluffs roadless area, adjacent to the Emmigrant Wilderness, extends north from Cherry Lake to Hells Mountain.

North Mountain roadless area is a prominent ridge that protrudes out from Yosemite Park, high above the Tuolumne River.  

Tuolumne River roadless area straddles the wild and scenic river and the dry, oak, brushcovered habitat along its canyon.  

Trumbull roadless area includes very steep, south-facing slopes of brush, oaks, and scattered conifers above the Merced River to the west of Yosemite Park.

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.

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