Bush Administration Takes Aim at Our Last Wild Forests
Your Letters Are Urgently Needed By September 10

Once again our National Forests need your help! You can help ensure that our
last wild forests are protected for future generations, not logged for
short-term profit.

Earlier this year, we reported on the landmark rule adopted by the outgoing
Clinton administration that banned logging and roadbuilding  in nearly 60
million acres of wild roadless and unspoiled areas in our national  forests.
This plan was the direct result of a tremendous outpouring of public support
from more than one million Americans including hundreds of thousands of
Sierra Club members. Yet the Bush Administration is ignoring public
sentiment and moving to kill the rule and its protections.

The Bush administration has launched a stealth attack on the largest
nationwide public land conservation decision in America's history. First,
Bush officials delayed implementing the roadless rule, then they refused to
defend a lawsuit brought by industry and its allies challenging the rule.
Now, while proclaiming its commitment to wilderness values, the
administration has started a formal process to gut the rule by allowing
individual national forests to opt out of it, one roadless wildland at a
time. The Bush Administration is moving to sacrifice the last wild areas of
our National Forests to clearcut logging, roadbuilding, and other
destructive activities.

That would turn back the clock to the old piecemeal decision process that
allowed millions of pristine acres to be developed every decade.

Our National Forests already contain more than nine times more miles of
roads than our country's interstate highway system. The Wild Forest
Protection Plan is a national policy to protect the last wild areas in our
National Forests from damaging activities. But the Bush Administration wants
to put these management decisions back in the hands of individual forest
supervisors, leaving our last wild forests vulnerable to being chipped away
at, forest by forest, timber sale by timber sale.

The Bush Administration is accepting public comments from now through
September 10th. Please address your individual letters to Forest Service
Chief Dale Bosworth. Following are some points to address in your letters.
Please personalize letters with information about why you value wild
forests: such as for hiking, camping, photography, hunting, fishing, sources
of clean water, places to enjoy quiet, study ecology etc. Also, please add
information about National Forests that you have visited. Finally, please
remember to include your name and address.

Thanks for your help!

* I oppose any changes to the Roadless Area Conservation Rule as published
in the Federal Register on January 12, 2001. Please fully and immediately
implement this landmark conservation rule on all National
Forests, including Alaska's Tongass.
*The last wild roadless areas of our National Forests should be protected
because they purify our drinking water, provide our families with places to
hike, hunt, fish, and camp, and give homes to fish and wildlife, including
endangered species like grizzly bear and salmon.
*The current rule already contains provisions to address wildfires and
forest health.
*I believe it is critical to have national guidelines for roadless areas,
and I oppose modifying the rule to allow forest-by-forest decisions on
whether to log, build roads in, or otherwise develop these pristine
areas.
*Over half of our national forest lands are already open to logging, mining,
roadbuilding and other development. The 58.5 million acres protected by the
roadless rule should remain protected from logging and other destructive
activities.
*Please count this as an official comment on the Advanced Notice of Proposed
Rulemaking.

ADDRESS INFORMATION:

Before September 10, please send letters directly to the Forest Service at:

USDA-Forest Service - CAT
Attention: Roadless ANPR Comments
P.O. Box 221090, Salt Lake City, Utah, 84122

2) via electronic mail to [log in to unmask]
    (If this address fails, please forward your message to
[log in to unmask])

3) or via facsimile to 1-801-296-4090, Attention: Roadless ANPR Comments.

Please be sure to include your name and address on all correspondence,
including e-mail.

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