The Los Padres is one of the most visited national forests in the nation, with large expanses of untouched wildlands that provide abundant recreation opportunities and large, intact wildlife habitat. The agency's most effective tool for protecting these areas is to recommend them for protection under the Wilderness Act of 1964. Once an area is recommended, Congress can pass legislation to officially designate the area as wilderness.

The new forest plan recommends four areas recommended for wilderness protection, including:

• Dick Smith Wilderness Additions - The plan recommends adding two areas totaling 32,273 acres to the existing Dick Smith Wilderness area, located about 10 miles north of Santa Barbara. One of these additions is nestled between Little Pine Mountain and Indian Creek; the other addition encompasses Mono Creek, an area of rich biological diversity with towering steep canyon walls, deep pools, limestone and sandstone outcroppings, and expansive rolling grass potreros, classic backdrops for wilderness discovery. The Buckhorn Trail, a popular mountainbiking route, lies just outside the wilderness boundary and will not be affected by this recommendation.

• Matilija Wilderness Addition - The plan recommends adding 2,822 acres to the existing Matilija Wilderness area, located about 6 miles northwest of Ojai. This recommended area is nestled just west of scenic Highway 33, between the existing Matilija and Dick Smith Wilderness areas. It includes the headwaters of Sespe Creek.

• Chumash Wilderness Addition - The Forest Service also "recommends" a third area for wilderness protection - the Chumash-Toad Springs off-highway vehicle route. This is an existing OHV route that cuts through the existing Chumash Wilderness. Under a law passed by Congress in 1992, this route will already become wilderness - automatically - as soon as the Forest Service constructs an alternate route. Since Congress has already provided automatic wilderness protection for this area, it is unclear why the Forest Service is still recommending it for wilderness.

Conservation groups applauded these wilderness additions, but believe they fall far short of what is needed to protect forest resources and accommodate rising public demand for wilderness recreation. These groups called for over 363,000 acres of new wilderness, but the final plan recommends less than 10% of this amount.

The agency even slashed 11,000 acres of wilderness areas that were recommended in the draft plan, but eliminated in the final plan. The eliminated areas include:

• Garcia Mountain (1,466 acres slashed) - This area is located 15 miles east of San Luis Obispo, and consists of four separate parcels adjacent to the existing Garcia Wilderness.

• La Brea (3,430 acres slashed) - This area is located 15 miles east of Santa Maria, and contains several tributary canyons to the Sisquoc River, a Wild & Scenic River and critical habitat for steelhead.

• Machesna Mountain (4,603 acres slashed) - Located 20 miles east of San Luis Obispo, this area consists of four separate parcels next to the existing Machesna Mountain Wilderness Area. This area contains potential habitat and borders a release site for the endangered California condor.

• Diablo (28 acres slashed) - This small area was slated for wilderness in the draft plan as an addition to the existing Dick Smith Wilderness. Located about 10 miles north of Carpinteria.

• Mono (1,013 acres slashed) - This area received a wilderness recommendation in both the draft and final plan, but the final plan reduced the recommended acreage by over 1,000 acres.

• Matilija (289 acres slashed) - This area also received a wilderness recommendation in both the draft and final plan, but the final plan reduced the recommended acreage by nearly 300 acres.

To justify such a paltry amount of recommended wilderness, the Forest Service contends that it has protected other areas by managing them as "Back County Non-Motorized" areas. ROD, p. 8. The agency claims that BCNM areas are protected just as well as if they were officially designated as wilderness.

Nothing could be further from the truth. BCNM zoning is a far cry from true wilderness protection. According to the agency's own documents, the following activities are allowed in BCNM areas, but are prohibited in wilderness:

• disposal (i.e. sale) of forest service lands to private individuals or developers

• construction of communication and radio towers

• oil and gas exploration and drilling

• mining

• logging

Such activities would never be allowed in a wilderness area, but are specifically allowed in BCNM zones. See LPNF Strategy, pp.3-5. Wilderness designation is the only way to keep these damaging activities out of our public wildlands.

Wilderness designation is also the only way to ensure permanent protection for these areas. Once Congress designates an area as wilderness, the area is protected forever. Reversing a wilderness designation would require a vote of 51 U.S. Senators and 218 members of Congress, all of whom are elected by the people.

On the other hand, BCNM zoning can be changed at any time by a single Forest Service appointee with no public accountability. For example, the agency can approve a simple forest plan amendment to change the zoning for a certain area from BCNM (which doesn't allow road construction or development) to Back County Motorized (which does allow road construction and development).

The agency also argues that wilderness designation is incompatible with fire management and suppression. ROD, p.8. However, fuels reduction and fire suppression activities are already allowed to occur in some existing wilderness areas. For example, legislation creating the Chumash Wilderness states that the Forest Service "may take such measures as are necessary for fire prevention and watershed protection." Pub. L. 102-301 § 3(b). Future legislation creating additional wilderness areas would probably contain similar language, allowing the agency to conduct necessary fire management in wilderness areas to protect nearby communities.

As existing wilderness areas become more crowded, and as the need for intact wildlife habitat and pristine watersheds becomes more evident, the Forest Service must step up and carry out its responsibility to provide our growing communities with adequate wilderness opportunities. ForestWatch will work to ensure that the agency includes more wilderness recommendations.