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Wilderness Alert - Last chance to strengthen the roadless area policy!

Let's close the door to any possibility of salvage logging in our National Forest roadless areas.

Last year, President Clinton proposed to "protect priceless, back-country lands" in our national forests, and directed Forest Service Chief Michael Dombeck to prepare a plan to protect our remaining national forest roadless areas. The extent of this protection was left up to the Forest Service to decide after the agency sought input from the public and completed an environmental impact statement (EIS).

The Forest Service issued a draft EIS earlier this year that failed to live up to President Clinton's vision of protecting priceless wild lands. The draft proposed to prohibit new road construction in roadless areas, but to allow logging, mining, off-road vehicle use, and a long list of other activities that could destroy roadless areas over time. The draft also exempted Alaska's vast Tongass National Forest from the policy.

Thanks to people like you, the Forest Service received over one million letters and other forms of comment from the public, the vast majority of which demanded stronger protection for all roadless areas. The Forest Service responded! Now, the final EIS has been issued, and it proposes to prohibit conventional logging and road construction in roadless areas. It will also apply to the Tongass National Forest, but not until 2004.

This is a truly historic step, one that we all should be proud of. Now, we have one last opportunity to strengthen the roadless area policy. We must try to strike out the last dangerous loopholes in the EIS that could allow destruction of these last wild lands. For example, the policy as currently written would allow salvage logging or logging for the sake of "forest health," a type of logging that the Forest Service used in 1996 and 1997 to cut millions of board feet of old-growth trees across the West. It is also critically important to send a strong message to the Forest Service in favor of roadless area protection, given that if Bush is elected President, he has promised that he will negate the roadless area policy.

Act now! Please write to:

Chief Mike Dombeck
U.S. Forest Service
201 14th & Independence Avenue, SW
P.O. Box 96090
Washington, D.C. 20090-6090
Fax: 202-205-1765

Your comments must be received by December 13, 2000.

Thank Chief Dombeck for proposing such an historic roadless area protection policy, but request that he strengthen it by:

1. Protecting all roadless areas 1,000 acres and larger in size.
   
2. Prohibiting off-road vehicle use, mining, and all forms of logging in roadless areas.
   
3. Immediately applying all of its provisions to AlaskaÕs Tongass National Forest.

California Wilderness Coalition, 2655 Portage Bay East #5, Davis, CA 95616. (530) 758-0380.