From Mitzi Emrich of Sierra Club

With today's announcement weakening roadless area protections, the Bush
Administration has emblazoned a bull's-eye on America's favorite unspoiled
forests.  Wild forests have some of the highest quality fish and wildlife
habitat, backcountry recreation, and clean water supplies in the country.
The Forest Service estimates that goods and services from National Forests
contribute $145 billion to the gross domestic product of the United States
every year ? less than three percent of which results from timber.

The Forest Service today claimed that while it will retain the popular
Roadless Area Conservation Rule in theory, it will allow states pressured
by the timber industry to seek exemptions. States will be able to "seek
relief for exceptional circumstances," but given the Bush Administration's
track record, this appears to be a huge loophole to promote logging under
the guise of fire protection. The Administration also announced it will
file a lawsuit settlement with the State of Alaska tomorrow to exempt the
Tongass National Forest from the roadless policy.

The Tongass and Chugach National Forests comprise more than 14 million
acres of roadless areas -- roughly 25 percent of land protected under the
58.5-million acre roadless rule. Alaska's National Forests have been
hammered over the years by logging, making the roadless protections for the
Tongass and Chugach crucial. Over the past 45 years, the timber industry
has clearcut more than 1 million acres of old-growth forest and built
nearly 5,000 miles of logging roads in southeast Alaska. American taxpayers
subsidize these roads and timber sales at a cost of $30 million a year,
according to the General Accounting Office. Immediately at risk are 300,000
acres of oldgrowth habitat in a state where more than 50 proposed timber
sales twill now move forward in the Tongass alone.

Under the guise of wildfire "prevention," the Administration has announced
changes to the National Environmental Policy Act, the National Forest
Management Act, the Endangered Species Act and the Appeals Reform Act among
others. According to the Congressional Research Service logging increases
the risk of fire by logging the larger, more fire-resistant trees that can
be converted into wood products, leaving behind the small material,
especially twigs and needles, known as "slash." In the environmental impact
research from the development of the Roadless Rule, the Forest Service
found that fires are twice as likely to occur in previously roaded and
logged areas than in large roadless areas.  Simply, most fires are caused
by human activity: 80 percent in the West and 97 percent in the East.

The roadless rule was the result of the most extensive public comment
process in history, spanning three years and 600 public meetings. During
the rulemaking, the administration received a record-breaking one million
public comments in support of protecting wild forests. To date, the Forest
Service has received more than 2 million comments from the American people,
overwhelmingly in favor of the strongest protections for these wild
forests. Despite fervent attempts by the Bush administration and allies in
the timber industry to undermine roadless protections, the rule has
withstood court challenge and is now considered the law of the land. For
more information, visit http:/www.sierraclub.org/logging

***Take Action!  Write a letter to the editor of your local newspaper. Also,
please call the White House comment line and make your voice heard! Calls
can be made to (202) 456-1111.***

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