Home Page

Groups and Activity Sections

News Releases and Action Alerts

Echo Newsletter

Join the Sierra Club!

Email Webmaster

Grand Canyon Sierra Club Alerts

Bush Administration Takes Aim at Our Last Wild Forests:

Your Letters Are Urgently Needed

Once again our National Forests need your help! You can help ensure that our last wild forests are protected for future generations, not logged for short-term profit. The Bush Administration is moving to sacrifice the last wild areas of our National Forests to clearcut logging, roadbuilding, and other destructive activities. In January 2001, former President Clinton finalized the Wild Forest Protection Plan to protect nearly 60 million acres of unspoiled National Forests. This plan was the direct result of a tremendous outpouring of public support from more than one million Americans including hundreds of thousands of Sierra Club members. Yet the Bush Administration is ignoring public sentiment and moving to kill the rule and its protections. You can help turn back these attacks by writing a letter to the Forest Service.

Our National Forests already contain more than nine times more miles of roads than our country's interstate highway system. The Wild Forest Protection Plan is a national policy to protect the last wild areas in our National Forests from damaging activities. But the Bush Administration wants to put these management decisions back in the hands of individual forest supervisors, leaving our last wild forests vulnerable to being chipped away at, forest by forest, timber sale by timber sale.

The Bush Administration is accepting public comments from now through September 10th. Please address your individual letters to Forest Service Chief Dale Bosworth. Following are some points to address in your letters. Please personalize letters with information about why you value wild forests: such as for hiking, camping, photography, hunting, fishing, sources of clean water, places to enjoy quiet, study ecology etc. Also, please add information about National Forests in your state or that you have visited. Finally, please remember to include your name and address. Thanks for your help!

• I oppose any changes to the Roadless Area Conservation Rule as published in the Federal Register on January 12, 2001. Please fully and immediately implement this landmark conservation rule on all National Forests, including Alaska's Tongass.

• The last wild roadless areas of our National Forests should be protected because they purify our drinking water, provide our families with places to hike, hunt, fish, and camp, and give homes to fish and wildlife, including endangered species like grizzly bear and salmon.

• The current rule already contains provisions to address wildfires and forest health.

• I believe it is critical to have national guidelines for roadless areas, and I oppose modifying the rule to allow forest-by-forest decisions on whether to log, build roads in, or otherwise develop these pristine areas.

• Over half of our national forest lands are already open to logging, mining, roadbuilding and other development. The 58.5 million acres protected by the roadless rule should remain protected from logging and other destructive activities.

• Please count this as an official comment on the Advanced Notice of Proposed Rulemaking.

ADDRESS INFORMATION:

Please send all letters to the Sierra Club by September 1.

Sierra Club
Wild Forest Campaign
408 C St NE
Washington DC 20002

Between September 1-10, please send letters directly to the Forest Service at:

USDA-Forest Service -- CAT
Attention: Roadless ANPR Comments
P.O. Box 221090, Salt Lake City, Utah, 84122

2) via electronic mail to roadless_anpr@fs.fed.us

3) or via facsimile to 1-801-296-4090, Attention: Roadless ANPR Comments.

You can also send a letter to the Forest Service through the Sierra Club's Action webpage: https://tioga.sierraclub.org:8080/takeaction/wildlands/index4.jsp

Page updated: 08/05/01

Return to Press Releases and Action Alerts page

Sierra Club, Grand Canyon Chapter, 202 E. McDowell Rd, Suite 277, Phoenix, AZ 85004, (602) 253-8633