Posted on: Tuesday, July 20, 2004

EDITORIAL
New wilderness rule threatens our forests

There is an odd sort of Orwellian quality to statements out of the Bush administration on its latest policy for roads in protected national forests and grasslands.

The new policy, which in effect reverses a "roadless rule" in protected forests launched by the previous Clinton administration, is designed to stimulate state-federal cooperation on protection of the forests, the administration says.

But the practical effect is to gut the roadless rule, rather than extend cooperation in enforcing it.

Under Clinton, road building was prohibited on some 58.5 million of 191 million acres managed by the Forest Service.

The net effect of the rule was to end logging, mining and other activities in these wilderness areas. This, clearly, did not sit well with the logging and mining industries.

Supporters of the change argue, in part, that the new process would make access easier for fire safety teams and other services. That's a bit of a smoke screen.

Under the new rule, states could petition the federal government to block road-building in federal forests within that state's borders.

This poses two problems.

The first is that the federal government would not have to agree. The second is that states that oppose the roadless rule would not bother to appeal for protection and the roads would go in.

There is room for some commercial use of our national forests, particularly those no longer pristine wilderness. And even under the Clinton plan, only a minority of the millions of acres of federal lands would have been protected by the roadless rule.

But this new proposed rule is way out of balance. During the public comment phase of this new plan, which will last about a 18 months, interested state governments, Congress and anyone concerned about the long-term fate of our national forests should insist that this plan be shelved.