COLORADO ROADLESS AREAS THREATENED!!

YOUR LETTERS NEEDED BY OCTOBER 23.

The Importance of Colorado’s Roadless Areas.  Roadless areas contain few or no roads open to motor vehicle use. Often, they are remote areas with rugged terrain that provide the highest quality habitat for wildlife species such as lynx, wolverine, bear and goshawk that need large areas with minimal human disturbance. Roadless areas also protect sources of much of Colorado’s clean drinking water; provide excellent areas for scientific research and education on natural ecosystems; and offer numerous opportunities for low-impact recreation. For more info on Colorado’s roadless areas go to www.roadless.net

What You Can Do To Protect Colorado’s Roadless National Forests:

Write a letter by October 23, strongly supporting continued full protection for all of Colorado’s national forest roadless areas under the 2001 Roadless Area Conservation Rule. Describe your use of national forest roadless areas in Colorado, including any specific roadless areas you visit, and the importance they have for you. State that the proposed rule omits qualified areas and strips a large number of meaningful protections from these critical lands. 

In your own words, please endorse the following revisions to the draft Colorado roadless rule:

• A number of qualified, citizen-inventoried roadless areas in the Pike-San Isabel have been completely omitted from the draft rule, including Bears Head, Beaver Creek, Kaufman Ridge, Pole Creek, Salt Creek, Wildcat Canyon, and others. These lands, each with distinctive natural values, must be a part of the final roadless inventory.

• Road construction and logging for fuel reduction must be limited to areas immediately adjacent to homes, where such efforts would be the most effective.

• Logging for wildlife must be limited to areas where maintenance of habitat for threatened or endangered species is needed, as it is under the 2001 Rule.

• Any Colorado Rule must prevent surface disturbance from oil and gas leases issued in roadless areas after the effective date of the 2001 Rule.

• No construction of new powerlines and water conveyances should occur in roadless areas.

• Potential ski areas expansions within roadless areas must remain in the roadless inventory until such time as their roadless status might change.

• Dangerously vague language and newly-created concepts, such as “long-term temporary roads” (which the Forest Service states might last for up to 30 years) must be eliminated.

Send your comments no later than October 23rd to: 

Mail:  Roadless Area Conservation—Colorado, P.O. Box 162909, Sacramento, CA 95816–2909

E-mail:  COcomments@fsroadless.org; Fax:  916–456–6724

For more information, contact Michael Rogers of Wild Connections, 719-328-9234 or go to www.wildconnections.org