This compromise plan has caused much controversy on both sides of the debate. The lure of new official wilderness is powerful, but at what price? Personally I trust MWA knows what they are doing. But I grind my teeth at the thought of handing over roadless areas to new roads.
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The resulting Beaverhead-Deerlodge Forest Partnership rests on three pillars: jobs in the woods, healthy forests, and protection of our Montana backcountry heritage. The conservation and timber partners are committed to a working forest that puts logs on the trucks and keeps the mills running, and ensures that world-class fishing, hunting, and recreational opportunities are present for future generations.
Aspen patch in the Beaverhead-Deerlodge National Forest(click for larger image):
Nice article by David Lien.
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Slow attrition follows road and trail development like its shadow. Wherever there is a road or OHV trail, there is slowly spreading damage, and OHV abuse has become a modern-day Hydra for public lands managers (The Hydra of Greek mythology was a many-headed monster Hercules fought and killed. After each head was cutoff, two others replaced it), as verified by Forest Service Chief Bosworth.
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WASHINGTON - A former Bureau of Land Management state director testified Tuesday that energy development has become the predominant use of public lands wherever oil and gas resources exist and that BLM policies facilitate development to the near exclusion of other priorities.
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The National Park Service and the state are offering a $1,000 reward for information leading to the culprits, park officials said in a statement Tuesday.
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A quarter-mile swath of land north, east and south of Chimney Rock in the Sequoia Forest will be closed to hikers and mountain-climbers for more than four months so cliff-nesting peregrine falcons will not be disturbed.
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The Gallatin National Forest is being hit with a pair of conflicting federal lawsuits over a recently approved travel plan that restricts where snowmobiles, bicycles and ATVs can operate within the 1.8-million-acre forest.
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On Tuesday, April 17, Congress passed the Wild Sky Wilderness Act of 2007, which will permanently protect more than 106,000 acres of roadless area in Washington state’s Mt. Baker-Snoqualmie National Forest. Though the Wild Sky Wilderness bill enjoyed broad support and was passed by the U.S. Senate on three occasions, it languished in the Resources Committee and was never signed into law–until now
