Friday, August 31, 2012

Recreation groups file suit to stop illegal wilderness

Two leading Idaho-based recreation organizations have sued the United States Forest Service, challenging the Clearwater National Forest’s decision to impose the same public use restrictions on areas they have recommended for possible Wilderness classification as one would find in lands actually designated by Congress. The Forest recently issued a new Travel Plan limiting motorized and mountain bike access to designated trails and areas. Motorized vehicles and mountain bikes are prohibited uses in the 1964 Wilderness Act, and this prohibition is in effect in the vast majority of designated Wilderness areas ever since, now about 110 million acres nationwide. However, these uses have previously been allowed in areas recommended for Wilderness designation unless they were proven to negatively affect future Wilderness qualification. The new Travel Plan changes that, imposing the same prohibitions on motorized and mechanized transport in areas the Forest considers Wilderness candidates, as are found in formal Wilderness, such as Idaho’s Selway-Bitterroot and Frank Church-River of No Return Wilderness areas. “Only Congress can designate Wilderness,” noted Sandra Mitchell, Public Lands Director of the Idaho State Snowmobile Association, the lead plaintiff. “For many years we have heard rumors the Northern Region was going to start illegally limiting their management options in potential Wilderness areas, effectively creating a new system of administratively designated Wilderness. In the Clearwater Travel Plan they have followed through on that vision. We cannot stand idly by and watch them change the long-established system for managing these treasured lands,” Mitchell concluded...more

You can view the complaint here.

No comments: