News Release

Contact: John McCarthy, conservation director, Idaho Conservation League
208-345-6933 ext 14

Bush and Forest Service drop Roadless Area protection

BOISE ­ The announcement by the U.S. Forest Service today to reopen the public comment process for Roadless Area management demonstrates it won't listen to public opinion and it won't do what people want.

"No matter how the Bush administration and the Forest Service package this so-called request for comments, what they are really doing is dismissing the people who already commented and making them into second class citizens," said John McCarthy, conservation director of the Idaho Conservation League.

During a three-year process, more than 1.6 million people already commented on the Roadless Area Conservation Rule, which was set to go into effect in March 2001. The Bush administration refused to implement the policy and now announces it plans to do further review.

"The overwhelming majority of people in the country, who care enough about our national forests to have already commented, have said they want roadless areas protected from road building and logging," McCarthy said.

"The reason they are not listening to the American people is because the Bush administration and the timber lobbyists don¹t like what they hear and it¹s a simple message ­ stop logging and road building in our roadless forests."

The inability of the Bush administration and the Forest Service to protect roadless areas and to move forward with a national policy means nothing will get done in roadless areas in the foreseeable future.

"If the Forest Service has to ask "how should roadless areas be managed?" it is very safe to say any proposed project in any roadless area should be stopped until they finish this endless analysis," McCarthy said. "The Forest Service is acknowledging they are clueless about roadless area management, and no logging or road building should be permitted until they figure it out."

After Forest Service Chief Dale Bosworth announced June 7 that revisions of local Forest Plans would determine Roadless Area management, more than 4,000 comments were sent in one week on the three Forest Plans of Southwest Idaho ­ Boise, Payette, and Sawtooth. An estimated 99 percent of these comments on these Forest Plans supported Roadless Area protection from logging and roads.

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