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Spring Equinox 2005. Volume 10, #1.
Inside…
A Look Down the Trail, by BethanieWalder. Page 2How to Establish a Successful RoadRemoval Program. Pages 3-5
Communities, Cash and Collaboration:
How to establish a successful road removal program
 By Beth Peluso and Marnie Criley.
Policy Primer: New National ForestManagement regulations, byJason Kiely. Pages 6-7Depaving the Way, by BethanieWalder. Pages 8-9Odes to Roads: Driving to theSource, by Marshall Elliott.Pages 10-11Wildlands CPR’s 2004 Annual Report.Pages 12-13Regional Reports. Pages 14-15Biblio Notes: Road Removal Research:Sites for Wildlife Studies, by ArielBleth. Pages 16-17Citizen Spotlight: Daniel R. Patterson of The Center for Biological Diversity,by Kiffin Hope. Pages 18-19Get with the Program: Restoration and Transportation Program Updates.Pages 20-21Around the Office, Membership info.Pages 22-23
Check out our website at: www.wildlandscpr.org 
 Photo by Bethanie Walder.
 
 The Road-RIPorter, Spring Equinox 2005
2
© 2005 Wildlands CPR
Wildlands CPR works to protect and restore wildland ecosystems by preventing and removing roads and limiting motorized recreation. We are a national clearinghouse and network, providing citizens with tools and strategies to fight road construction,deter motorized recreation, and promote road removal and revegetation.
P.O. Box 7516Missoula, MT 59807(406) 543-9551 www.wildlandscpr.org
Director 
Bethanie Walder 
Development Director 
Tom Petersen 
Restoration ProgramCoordinator 
Marnie Criley 
Science Coordinator 
Adam Switalski 
Transportation Policy Organizer 
Jason Kiely 
Program Assistant 
Kiffin Hope 
Newsletter 
Jessie McQuillan 
Interns & Volunteers 
Ariel Bleth, Katherine Court, Jolanta Glabek 
Board of Directors 
Amy Atwood, Karen DiBari, Greg Fishbein, Jim Furnish, Bill Geer, Dave Havlick, Cara Nelson,Sonya Newenhouse, Matt Skroch 
 Advisory Committee 
Jasper Carlton, Dave Foreman,Keith Hammer, Timothy Hermach,Marion Hourdequin, Kraig Klungness, Lorin Lind- ner, Andy Mahler, Robert McConnell, Stephanie Mills, Reed Noss, Michael Soulé, Steve Trombulak,Louisa Willcox, Bill Willers, Howie Wolke 
I
n January, a Washington, D.C., congressional newsletter ( 
 Federal Parks and Recre- ation,
V23, #2) announced the pending introduction of a Federal Recreation PolicyAct that would create overarching rules for recreation on all public lands. Althoughno representative has yet agreed to sponsor the bill, it is already circulating on CapitolHill and will likely be introduced soon.Each public land management agency has its own regulations for recreation, oftenbased on the different purposes for which the different public lands were created.National parks, for example, have different rules on recreation than national forests ornational wildlife refuges. But this new bill would create consistent recreation policiesacross all public lands, potentially legislating recreation as the primary use of publiclands throughout the country. This could rewrite the role of recreation in managementpolicies—and undo our current recognition that protection and management of publiclands for future generations of Americans is a vital goal.While the proposal is still being revised, the version we saw stated the followingpurpose for the act: “To declare a national policy regarding the management and useof federal lands and waters to provide for and facilitate a diversity of recreationalopportunities to enhance (1) public health and welfare, (2) appreciation of naturalresources and the environment, and (3) economic benefits for gateway, rural and othercommunities.”This act is a vaguely disguised attempt to encourage the privatization of profitsand access to public lands, while using the innocuous-sounding goal of “improvingrecreational opportunities.” Language in the act would specifically encourage publicland management agencies to privatize certain aspects of recreation management,thereby reducing public land managers’ authority and increasing private profit. Itwould expand opportunities to sell off public lands as a means of generating fundsfor recreational activities (consistent with actions allowed through the SouthernNevada Public Lands Management Act). It would also tie recreational managementdecisions directly to the economic benefits they can provide to gateway communities.This, by definition, would make recreation of higher value than resource protection.Furthermore, a bill like this could—in practice, if not in language—supersede the twooff-road vehicle executive orders and make it very difficult to control off-road vehicleabuses on public lands.While those who favor this bill might paint us as anti-recreation, we cannot supportpassage of any such national recreation management bill. Wildlands CPR is not anti-recreation, but we do believe that all recreation should be managed in accordancewith maximizing protection for the land. In addition, we support the legacy of naturalheritage that was gifted to us by our predecessors when they created and set aside ourcountry’s public lands. And wedo not want to see that nationalheritage thrown away throughinsidious bills like this one, whichwould give management control ofour public lands to private entities,while simultaneously creatingperverse economic incentivesthat encourage high-paying, high-impact recreation to become themainstay of our public lands.
 Spring is here! Photo by Bethanie Walder.
 
 The Road-RIPorter, Spring Equinox 2005
3
Communities, Cash and Collaboration:
How to Create a Successful Road Removal Program
 By Beth Peluso and Marnie Criley 
W
hat makes for a success-ful road-decommissioningprogram on our nationalforests? Why are many programs socontentious? While some forests faceheated battles at every turn, work beingdone in other forests serves as a primeexample of how successful road-remov-al programs can be. In 2004, WildlandsCPR published a full report titled
Com- munities, Cash and Collaboration
. Beloware three case studies from that report:the Clearwater National Forest (CNF) inIdaho, the Lolo National Forest (LNF)in Montana, and the Siuslaw NationalForest (SNF) in Oregon. Based on thesecase studies, we have developed a mod-el that national forests can use to createor improve road removal programs.
Clearwater National Forest 
 Partnership
Severe rain and snow storms dur-ing the winters of 1995 and 1996 led tomore than 900 landslides on the Clear-water National Forest in Idaho. Nearlytwo-thirds of those landslides wereroad-related, leading the federal govern-ment to provide millions of emergencydollars to start fixing the problems.During the last eight years, the CNF hasremoved nearly 500 miles of roads, us-ing many funding sources and buildingsignificant community support alongthe way.The strength of the CNF’s roadremoval program lies in its partnershipwith the Nez Perce tribe. Not all na-tional forests have the option of work-ing with a Native American tribe, butthis framework for a partnership couldalso work with local watershed groups,conservation groups and local job pro-grams. The underlying benefits includeaccess to funding not accessible to theForest Service as an agency, an expand-ed pool of skilled workers, and commu-nity benefits (such as employment) thathelp generate a positive local attitudetoward road decommissioning.The CNF and the Nez Perce tribehave a participating agreement, withthe current one running from 2001through 2006. Each year, the partners write new amendments for that year’s proj-ects, specifying who will provide the money, labor, planning, equipment, adminis-tration and other necessities, and in what amounts (Connor interview 2003).Documents and formal agreements are only a small part of how the partner-ship functions. The tribe and the Forest Service decide together which projectsshould be a priority, and then they determine a budget, including what proposals towrite. The two agencies trade work crews and individuals back and forth to wherethey are needed in the field.“That’s probably why it is so successful, because we’re planning it, designingit and doing the monitoring and all of that together, so every phase of the projectis a true partnership,” says Ira Jones, the Nez Perce watershed coordinator for theClearwater River. (Jones interview 2003). Jim Caswell, a former Clearwater Forestsupervisor, sums up the forest’s position by saying that if the CNF had to set upa list of programs to cut because of funding, the road-decommissioning programwould be the last to go (Caswell interview 2003).
 Siuslaw National Forest 
 
 Prioritizing 
The federal listing of the spotted owl and marbled murrelet as threatened spe-cies and the subsequent 1994 Northwest Forest Plan radically changed the SNF’spriorities from timber harvesting to restoring riparian and terrestrial ecosystems(SNF RAP 2003). In 1993, the SNF held public workshops to develop criteria for de-termining key roads, and in 1994 they published the
 Access and Travel Management Guide
, identifying 630 miles of “key roads” necessary for public and agency accessto forest lands, about one-third of the then-existing road system (SNF RAP 2003).Non-key roads are basically on a waiting list for decommissioning. Karen Bennett,the Watershed Program manager, says the key road system makes planning mucheasier because the agency has already answered the question of which roads tomaintain (interview 2003).
 Removed logging road in the Clearwater National Forest. Photo by Adam Switalski.
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