|
December 15, 2010
Agreement Protects 1 Million
Acres of Roadless Areas in SoCal Forests
Includes
Protections for More Than
600,000 Acres of Los Padres National Forest
San Francisco —
The Los Padres National Forest will benefit from an
agreement announced today between conservationists, the
state of California, off-road vehicle users and the U.S. Forest
Service to protect more than 600,000 acres of roadless areas in
Santa Barbara, Ventura, San Luis Obispo, and Kern counties from
development. The agreement is awaiting approval by federal
district court Judge Marilyn Hall Patel.
“Today’s agreement brings us one step closer towards securing
the permanent protection of our region’s wild places,” said Jeff
Kuyper, executive director of Los Padres ForestWatch, a Santa
Barbara-based conservation organization that participated in the
agreement. “It promotes healthy wildlife populations, pristine
open spaces, clean water, and outdoor recreation opportunities
for our local communities, all of which are facing increasing
pressures from urbanization and development.”
The deal resolves a
federal lawsuit brought by ForestWatch and other
conservation groups in 2008 challenging Forest Service management plans
for four Southern California national forests. The challenged
plans opened up 900,000 roadless acres for possible road
building or other development across the four forests, including
600,000 acres in the Los Padres. In 2009 a
federal district court agreed with the groups,
ruling that
the plans violated the National Environmental Policy Act. After
that ruling was issued, the parties agreed to negotiate a
settlement.
Under the agreement, the Forest Service will reevaluate the
management plan for roadless areas, and issue a new plan for
those areas. The agency will also seek funding for restoration
projects in roadless areas, and refrain from approving road
building and other activities that could diminish the areas'
chances of qualifying for permanent protection as
Congressionally-designated wilderness. While the analysis is
underway, a stakeholder group will identify and prioritize
needed restoration projects in those areas.
THE AGREEMENT
Specific terms of the agreement include:
-
By December
2012, the Forest Service will complete a Supplemental
Environmental Impact Statement (SEIS) in which they will
propose rezoning 37 priority roadless areas as Recommended
Wilderness, the highest level of protection set forth in the
management plan.
-
Until the
agency completes the SEIS, all roadless areas will be
protected from harmful activities.
-
The agencies
and groups will work together to identify illegal roads and
trails that are degrading roadless areas, and the Forest
Service will prioritize these roads for decommissioning and
restoration by July 2011. The Forest Service estimates that
318 miles of roads have been constructed in "roadless areas"
over the years in the Los Padres National Forest; most of
these roads have never been formally approved and do not
meet official standards.
-
The Forest
Service will identify and apply for federal, state, and
private sources of funding to carry out priority
decommissioning and restoration projects in the four
forests.
-
The Forest
Service will increase public disclosure about which proposed
development activities will affect roadless areas.
-
The Forest
Service will evaluate ways to improve how it monitors the
impacts of land uses on the national forests. The Forest
Service will summarize the results of its monitoring in a
report made available to the public each year.
The environmental
groups in the suit are the Center for Biological Diversity, Los
Padres ForestWatch, Sierra Club, Defenders of Wildlife,
California Native Plant Society, California Wilderness Coalition
and The Wilderness Society, all represented by Earthjustice
attorneys Erin Tobin and Trent Orr.
“Under this agreement some of the most wild and pristine areas
of Southern California’s national forests will be better
protected from potential damage,” said Ileene Anderson, a Center
for Biological Diversity biologist. “These areas provide
critically important strongholds for endangered species such as
steelhead, California condors and arroyo toad.”
Earthjustice attorney Erin Tobin said, “Southern Californians
need and want wild areas, wildlife, healthy forests and clean
drinking water. That’s what these national forests have to offer
and they will be better protected going forward because of the
agreement we’ve reached.”
Kim Delfino, the California program director for Defenders of
Wildlife said, “California’s national forests are some of the
last remaining wild places in our state, and smart planning is
essential to protecting the forests’ resources, especially vital
wildlife habitat.”
“John Muir called for the protection of all wild places,” said
Joyce Burk of the Sierra Club's Southern California Forests
Committee. “We are a step closer to protecting some of Southern
California’s wild places with this agreement.”
“As the Southern California population pushes past 15 million,
wild lands are even more critical to the region because they
provide drinking water, clean air and outdoor recreation,” said
Annette Kondo, spokeswoman for The Wilderness Society’s
California office. “Any additional wilderness will be a
life-enhancing gift for future families."
Background
The Forest Service
updated its
land management plans for the four national forests in 2005.
The revised plans largely ignored an alternative developed by a
coalition of conservation groups that would have safeguarded the
forests’ unique biological diversity. In 2008, seven groups
filed suit over this and several other flaws in the plans.
The four national forests of southern California include more
than 3.5 million acres of public land from Big Sur to the
Mexican border. The forests host a high diversity of ecosystems,
including chaparral, oak woodlands, savannas, deserts and alpine
areas. Habitat for sensitive, threatened and endangered animals
is significantly affected by poorly managed roads, increasing
demands for motorized recreation from the growing populations in
Los Angeles and San Diego, oil and gas development, urban
infrastructure, and other developmental pressures.
The Los Padres National Forest encompasses nearly 2 million
acres in the coastal mountains of central California, stretching
from the Big Sur coast to the western edge of Los Angeles
County. The Angeles, near Los Angeles, contains 663,000 acres.
The San Bernardino includes 665,700 acres and abuts the Inland
Empire. The Cleveland includes 420,000 acres in Orange and San
Diego counties. Many wildlife habitats will be protected by the
new plans, including the arroyo toad, California condor,
California red-legged frog, California spotted owl, least Bell’s
vireo, northern goshawk, Santa Ana sucker, Sierra Nevada
mountain yellow-legged frog, southern California steelhead
trout, and southwestern willow flycatcher.
Maps
The maps below
show which areas will receive interim protection pending
completion of the SEIS.
-
Yellow/Orange - Areas protected by today's agreement.
Most will be proposed for Recommended Wilderness in the SEIS.
-
Dark Green
- Areas current proposed for Recommended Wilderness.
-
Light Green
- Forest Service land with roads.
-
Diagonal
Lines - Existing Wilderness Areas.
San Luis
Obispo County/Northern Santa Barbara County
click here to download a larger pdf version of this map
Santa
Barbara/Ventura/Kern Counties
Next Steps
The Forest Service will complete
its SEIS by December 2012. In that document, officials will
evaluate whether to rezone many roadless areas as Recommended
Wilderness. The agency will likely release its draft evaluation
public review and comment sometime in 2011. When the draft is
released, ForestWatch will carefully review it to ensure the
highest level of protection for these pristine roadless areas.
Between now and when the SEIS is
finalized, ForestWatch will work with other organizations and
state and federal officials to identify illegal roads in
roadless areas that are harming the environment. Using our
on-the-ground knowledge of these areas, ForestWatch will help
identify which roads to prioritize for decommissioning, and will
work to identify funding sources to carry out the work.
Today's agreement represents the
first step towards protecting the Los Padres National Forest's
roadless areas from illegal roads. Stay tuned for updates as
this exciting and long-awaited effort unfolds. |
