The Midwest and the eastern half of the United States are home to a slowly diminishing number of roadless national forests. With so few places for a large portion of the U.S. population to go to relax, hike, camp, or fish, the Forest Service’s current policies for managing the most pristine parts of our National Forests -- roadless areas -- are particularly disturbing and they pose an urgent threat to these irreplaceable resources.
Under the Eastern Wilderness Act of 1975, the Forest Service is required to inventory roadless areas during the development of forest plans and to evaluate these areas in order to make a wilderness recommendation to Congress. In addition, under the 2001 Roadless Area Conservation Rule, these roadless national forests are protected from most forms of road construction, logging, and other development.
However, attempts by the Bush Administration’s attempts to repeal the Roadless Rule, coupled with the Forest Service’s recent misinterpretations of the Eastern Wilderness Act, are putting the last remaining wild and natural places in the East and Midwest at serious risk.
Early in the twentieth century, Forest Service employees such as Aldo Leopold and Bob Marshall were the creative genius behind the uniquely American wilderness ideal. Regrettably, the current Administration and the Forest Service it oversees seem to have abandoned this ideal.
This report, Eastern Roadless Areas Under Threat, documents the Forest Service’s common pattern of deliberately minimizing and eliminating opportunities to protect the last intact eastern and midwestern roadless national forests for future generations.
Managers of National Forests, following guidelines written by eastern and southern regional foresters, have deviated from official Forest Service guidance when developing an inventory of roadless forests and have misapplied the concepts of “core of solitude” and “improved road” in their evaluations.
Analysis of Specific Forest Plans
Misinterpreting the Eastern Wilderness Act, Consequences for Roadless Areas
White Mountain National Forest (New Hampshire)
An initial inventory of roadless lands, presented in March 2003, included 16 areas totaling about 288,000 acres. Observers noted that the inventory process wrongly excluded thousands of acres as potential wilderness. In response to these observations, the Forest Service adjusted their initial inventory to include 33 percent more roadless acres – increased from 288,000 to 383,000 acres.
Green Mountain National Forest (Vermont)
The evaluation of one specific roadless area in the Green Mountain National Forest, Lamb Brook, provides evidence of the Forest Service’s misinterpretation of the inventory process. The rugged area encompasses 17,500 undeveloped acres, including the 5,000-acre proposed Lamb Brook Wilderness (just north of the Massachusetts border). Using the regional criteria for roadless inventories, the Forest Service reduced the total roadless acres because of a motorized trail called “Stage Road.” The area might well have benefited from further analysis, but its size was drastically scaled down because of regional criteria that was applied incorrectly and were contrary to official Forest Service regulations.
Chequamegon-Nicolet National Forest (Wisconsin)
Detailed analysis of this forest’s recently revised plan shows that initially 67 areas, encompassing over 100,000 acres, were considered for potential roadless designation. Of the original 67, 16 areas were screened out according to the mapping criteria in the forest plan and another 42 were eliminated after a field inspection. Therefore, 58 of 67 areas, totaling at least 100,000 acres of potentially suitable roadless acreage, were never evaluated for further wilderness study.
Superior National Forest (Minnesota)
The Superior National Forest is home to the famed Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness, about a half a million acres that National Geographic Magazine once described as one of 50 “must-see” sites in the world. Negligent planning, however, has allowed logging and road construction in parts of the original 13 inventoried roadless acres -- decreasing the total acreage from 61,500 to 16,500. The forest plan that was most recently proposed includes 22 new roadless areas totaling 44,000 acres.
Jefferson National Forest (Virginia)
According to documentation for the Jefferson National Forest’s revised forest plan, more than 250,000 acres were considered for roadless designation prior to selecting only about 153,000 acres in 37 areas. Of the 37 areas that were chosen, only 25,200 acres were recommended as wilderness study areas.
Chattahoochee-Oconee National Forest (Georgia)
Chattahoochee-Oconee National Forest completed its forest plan revision in 2004. Documentation of its roadless inventory included 23 individual areas – 65,000 acres-- that were initially considered as possibly being suitable for wilderness. In the end, only 8,000 acres, 12 percent, were considered for wilderness suitability.
Cherokee National Forest (Tennessee)
In the recently completed plan for the Cherokee National Forest, 18 individual areas encompassing 85,000 acres were originally considered for wilderness suitability. Officials finally decided to include only 6 areas, totally 20,000 acres, or approximately 23 percent of the inventory.
What’s at Stake
Although nationally our roadless forests are at risk, those in the eastern and midwestern parts of the United States are especially vulnerable. Because of early and persistent settlement, relatively few roadless forests remain in the Midwest and along the East Coast. This means that protections for the handful of wilderness areas that do survive in each of the Region 8 and 9 states are extraordinarily important. The Forest Service’s recent deviations from official guidelines pertaining to Eastern roadless forests will have a lasting impact by creating a “subtle yet powerful incentive to conduct logging and road building” that will destroy these priceless natural treasures.
