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Forest Service to change roadless-area policy Staff and wire reports WASHINGTON - The Forest Service is moving to change Clinton-era policies designed to protect roadless portions of national forests. New interim directives remove redundancies in agency guidelines and provide protections to pristine forest areas, agency spokeswoman Heidi Valetkevitch said Monday. But environmentalists say the changes will open up an uncounted number of acres to logging, road building and other projects, as well as weaken requirements for scientific review. The directives alter a forest transportation policy developed during the Clinton administration that required each national forest to decide how many miles of roads it needs. Right now, more than 383,000 miles weave through some 192 million acres of national forest. In the Klamath-Siskiyou region, that includes about 30,000 miles of roads. The changes remove a requirement that smaller, undeveloped areas next to large swaths of roadless forest lands be protected unless there is a compelling need to develop them. They also allow regional officials to decide if environmental and public reviews are necessary to determine if development is appropriate. The Clinton administration mandated the reviews. Valetkevitch said those areas are best managed by local officials and other policies. "The roads management policy really is about managing a road system," not making decisions about undeveloped forest lands, she said. David Hill, executive vice president of the Southern Oregon Timber Industries Association, was withholding judgment until he saw the fine print. "But I certainly agree that decisions need to be made at the local level, after local public input," he said. "That's where the best decisions are made." The roadless package and other similar Clinton administration programs were adamantly opposed by the timber and mining industries, many recreational groups and advocates of multiple use on public land. However, Dominick DellaSala, director of the Klamath-Siskiyou Regional Program for the World Wildlife Fund, is concerned that the agency is chipping away at the roadless area package enacted by Clinton early this year. Clinton declared nearly 60 million acres of national forest land, including nearly 2 million acres in Oregon, off-limits to road building as well as most logging. That included setting aside 81,417 roadless acres on the Rogue River National Forest and 287,063 roadless acres on the Siskiyou National Forest. "They are chipping away at the roadless area policy," DellaSala said. "There is no scientific basis for them to do this. "They are going against the grain of both scientific and public support on this one." Joseph Vaile, campaign coordinator for the Klamath-Siskiyou Wildlands Center in Ashland, agreed. Polls have shown that the majority of Americans want to protect roadless areas on federal forest land, he noted. "Most Americans want roadless areas and old-growth forests protected," he said. "It will be another great tragedy if the Bush administration allows the destruction of these special and rare public treasures." Mike Anderson, forest analyst at the Wilderness Society, sees even bigger changes. "It removes all protection for smaller undeveloped areas that are often critically important wildlife habitats," he said. Anderson said subtle language changes in the directives also mean fewer safeguards for larger roadless areas protected under the previous administration's "roadless rule." The rule excluded 58.5 million acres of forest land from logging, road building and other development except in rare circumstances. The directives will remain in effect for 18 months while the Forest Service decides what to do about a court decision that temporarily blocked the roadless rule from taking effect. The changes took effect Friday and will be published in the Federal Register, a clearinghouse of government regulations, later this week. The public will have 60 days to comment. Mail Tribune Home | Ottaway Newspapers, Inc. | Dow Jones & Co., Inc. | Privacy | Contact Us Copyright � 2001 Mail Tribune, Inc.