Lost opportunity:  "Roadless Area Conservation: National Forest System Lands in Idaho final EIS )Volumes 1-5 and map packet)

 

We just got our response as a CD from the U.S. Department of Agriculture Environmental Impact Statement (EIS)  for the Roadless Area Conservation; National Forest System Lands in Idaho which supports the rule making effort for the Idaho Roadless Rule. 

"

The final rule is to be published in October. It would provide management direction regarding protection for rodless characteristics and permissions for limited timber cutting and road construction and reconstruction and discretionary mineral activities across 9.3 million acres in Idaho.  Based on public comment, a new alternative (Alternative 4, the Modified Idaho Roadless Rule) was added to the final EIS. This alternative is the preferred alternative and modifies the proposed action by: 1. Reducing the amount of roadless areas placed in the General Forest Rangeland and Grassland (GFRG) and reconfigureing them to more closely reflect on the ground conditions of individual roadless areas.

2. Changing the permissions for road construction and reconstruction to facilitate timber cutting sale and removal of the Backcountry Restoration theme to focus on reducing risks from wildland fire to at-risk communities and municipal water supply systems based on guidance provided in HFRA  etc, etc,   Complete information can be found at http://roadless.fs.fed.us/"

 

This was an opportunity for public comment.  More public comment could make a  difference.  Lost roadless areas means loss to forests.Phyllis

Stern message

Key to understanding his conclusions is that as forests decline, nature stops providing services which it used to provide essentially for free.

So the human economy either has to provide them instead, perhaps through building reservoirs, building facilities to sequester carbon dioxide, or farming foods that were once naturally available.

Or we have to do without them; either way, there is a financial cost.

The Teeb calculations show that the cost falls disproportionately on the poor, because a greater part of their livelihood depends directly on the forest, especially in tropical regions.

The greatest cost to western nations would initially come through losing a natural absorber of the most important greenhouse gas.

Just as the Stern Review brought the economics of climate change into the political arena and helped politicians see the consequences of their policy choices, many in the conservation community believe the Teeb review will lay open the economic consequences of halting or not halting the slide in biodiversity.