For Immediate Release
Jan. 21, 2000

Contacts:
John McCarthy, ICL, (208) 345-6924 ext 14
Mike Medberry, American Lands Alliance, (208) 429-1005
Craig Gehrke, Wilderness Society, (208) 344-8153

Conservationists intervene in Idaho Roadless lawsuit

BOISE -- Three conservation groups filed court documents today to counter the State of Idaho lawsuit fighting roadless area protection.

The conservationists petitioned the U.S. District Court to become part of the lawsuit filed by Idaho officials who oppose the U.S. Forest Service proposals on roadless areas. The Forest Service was directed by President Clinton in October to develop proposals on road building and logging in 40 million acres of roadless forests. About 8 million acres are in Idaho.

"Idaho state officials are only trying to stall the inevitable roadless area protection, while they hide behind fed-bashing rhetoric about supposed states rights," said John McCarthy, conservation director of the Idaho Conservation League, the lead group seeking to intervene in the state lawsuit.

The Idaho Land Board filed a lawsuit in December, claiming more time and information was needed to review the Forest Service proposals.

"We've been publicly debating forest roadless area management in Idaho for more than 20 years. During that time we've lost a million acres of potential Wilderness to logging and roadbuilding. Now when a decision might go against developers, the state wants to derail the process," said Mike Medberry, wilderness coordinator for the American Lands Alliance.

The State of Idaho paid for a 1993 report that identified forest roadless areas in Idaho, including maps, called Idaho Roadless Areas and Wilderness Proposals. The state also paid for an analysis of Forest Service operations in 1998, called History and Analysis of Federally Administered Lands in Idaho. Both reports were done by the University of Idaho's Policy Analysis Group. The Forest Service identified all inventoried roadless areas in existing forest plans more than ten years ago and has made this information available on the worldwide web http://roadless.fs.fed.us/maps/usmap.shtml.

There are piles of documents and enough maps to wallpaper a room on these issues of inventoried roadless areas, dating back to the late 1970s -- so even the State of Idaho can hardly claim ignorance, said Craig Gehrke, Idaho director of the Wilderness Society.

Conservationists participated in all of the public meetings on the proposals presented by the Forest Service in 10 Idaho cities, out of 190 public meetings held around the country. Separate special meetings were held with Idaho state officials. More than 500,000 comments were received. Another round of comments will be accepted in the summer.

This process had more public participation than anything the Forest Service has ever done, but the state never presented a proposal -- its just trying to cover for the logging corporations and developers, McCarthy said.

The three groups are represented by Earthjustice Legal Defense Fund and the Land and Water Fund of the Rockies.