I’m at the Retirees’ Reunion in Missoula, so if you are interested in submitting a guest post, this would be a good time to do so.
I heard from a number of people since I posted about Roadless last week.
There are a couple of interesting things worth pointing out and discussing.
While as the Chiefs’ letter pointed out, the initial Roadless Rule was about logging,
The Forest Service would do well to remember that 80 percent of its road budget was cut as a surrogate to stop the agency from building roads in roadless areas and selling old growth. Road maintenance became a major issue and roadless areas took center stage for political, environmental and budgetary reasons. This led to the suspension of road building and subsequent development of the 2001 Roadless Rule”
recreation folks like Don Amador and Patrick McKay re telling us about collateral impacts on recreation. How did that happen?
I have also been hearing from folks that a difficulty is that given the Roadless Rule, districts that want to get things done often don’t go into them for fuel treatment projects (given a choice) because they know they will encounter disfavor among certain groups and possibly litigation. That is absolutely rational, given metrics of organizational success.. and at the same time a potential problem
Something that State Rules considered, or put in, was the need for RF approval of certain kinds of projects. Which some people think is an opportunity for arbitrary and capricious decisions, as in “don’t do it.” Again, there’s a theme that the 2001 Rule has flexibility, and doesn’t address recreation (it was about timber) and yet seems to have impacts on whether projects are planned, and how recreation is handled.
I think Don Amador has an interesting idea in his comment and op-ed- maybe it’s time to reimagine the recreation elements of Roadless and give it another name. I believe the Backcountry name is similar to one theme in the Idaho Rule.
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PUSH THE ROADLESS RESET BUTTON
Today marks the deadline for submitting initial public scoping comments in a new rulemaking process by the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) to rescind the 2001 Roadless Rule in an effort to bring clarity on just how our natural, cultural, and recreational resources should be managed in Inventoried Roadless Areas (IRA).
As a motorized recreation lead who participated in many of the “roadless” political, policy, and legal battles (circa 1998-2010), I feel this process could be used as a time for private and public stakeholders to push the reset button on this somewhat contentious issue.
My thoughts today are informed by the past but more importantly guided by my more recent experiences as a participant and/or lead in various recreation or forest health/wildfire collaboratives.
In my view, the Roadless Rule has raised barriers to active management that limit line-officer flexibility when it comes to planning for and/or implementing forest health, fuel reduction, or wildfire mitigation projects.
Also many IRAs have popular designated OHV routes, but that same lack of flexibility in some cases severely limit consideration of designating a new connector trail, constructing a warranted trail reroute, or using a small trail tractor to perform needed route maintenance or construction activities.
I hope this rule-making process finds a way to amend or streamline current regulations or policy to authorize and encourage hybrid multi-objective fuel or wildfire mitigation projects that include a recreation component such as constructing a new trail or reconstructing an old trail within the project footprint to meet visitor needs.
I believe USDA will find both motorized and non-motorized recreation groups in strong support for the use of existing Forest Health Collaboratives that bring diverse stakeholders and partners in local communities together to increase the pace and scale of Forest health, pre/post fire mitigation, and recreation efforts. These groups already consist of representatives from tribes, private timber companies, resource conservation districts, state and local fire agencies, cattle ranchers, conservation groups, hunters, and OHV organizations. Why reinvent the wheel?
Finally, this process might want to consider revising the term IRA to a better descriptive that is more relevant. Since IRAs often contain a meaningful amount of popular roads and trails the stakeholders may want them designated as an official Backcountry area with an “active management” focus.
Let’s hope that all sides can agree that some form of a reset is needed to address current and future needs of these important forest lands.
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Don Amador has been in the trail advocacy and recreation management profession for 35 years. Don is President of Quiet Warrior Racing LLC. Don serves as the Western States Representative for the Motorcycle Industry Council. Don is Past President/CEO and current board member of the Post Wildfire OHV Recovery Alliance. Don is a Co-Founder and Core-Team member on FireScape Mendocino, a forest health collaborative that is part of the National Fire Learning Network. Don served as an AD Driver for the Forest Service North Zone Fire Cache during the 2022, 2023, and 2024 Fire Seasons. Don writes for Dealernews Magazine. Don is a Northern California native and writes from his home in Cottonwood, CA.
Apologies to all.. the below is from Patrick McKay in response to another comment, but provides some context for a long history (including litigation) of whether roadless is intended to be pre-Wilderness and how the two relate. Due to being in my hotel room somehow I missed explaining that. It’s probably another piece in the puzzle of Roadless as written in the reg, vs. Roadless as carried out in practice.
The Congressional attempts to rein in administrative wilderness designations are the Wilderness Act itself requiring Congress to designate Wilderness, plus every time Congress designates new Wilderness areas with specific boundaries and prohibitions on creating buffer zones or precluding other uses in adjacent areas outside the wilderness because they can be seen or heard inside the Wilderness. Every time an agency closes a cherry stemmed road or boundary road, every time it manages land adjacent to a Wilderness area as some form of “recommended wilderness”, “lands with wilderness characteristics”, “roadless area”, or “semi-primitive non-motorized” ROS zone, it is ignoring the direct intent of Congress and creating de facto administrative expansions of the Wilderness area contrary to Congressional directives.
Regarding the Wilderness Act itself, the legislative history makes it clear it was intended to prohibit all forms of administrative Wilderness designation. Here is something I wrote in my objections to the recommended wilderness areas in the GMUG forest plan that explains it:
The Wilderness Act of 1964 makes it quite clear that new Wilderness areas are supposed to be designated by Congress, not created by administrative agencies. Indeed, the creation of new de facto wilderness areas by administrative agencies was precisely what the Wilderness Act was intended to prevent. As the U.S. District Court for the District of Wyoming explained in State of Wyoming v. United States Department of Agriculture, No. 01-CV-86-B, at *1 (D. Wyo. July 14, 2003) (reversed on other grounds):
“The Wilderness Act declared it the policy of Congress to “secure for the American people of present and future generations the benefits of an enduring resource of wilderness.” 16 U.S.C. § 1131 (a). To effectuate this policy, Congress established the National Wilderness Preservation System (“NWPS”), which would be composed of congressionally designated “wilderness areas.” Id. The Wilderness Act also immediately designated certain areas as wilderness, Id. § 1132(a), and provided the procedure for future designation of wilderness areas, id. § 1132(b). In establishing the NWPS, Congress unambiguously provided that “no Federal lands shall be designated as `wilderness areas’ except as provided for in [the Wilderness Act] or by a subsequent Act.” Id. § 1131(a).
Therefore, Congress has the sole power to create and set aside federally designated wilderness areas pursuant to the Wilderness Act. Parker v. United States, 309 F. Supp. 593, 597 (D. Colo. 1970), aff’d, 448 F.2d 793 (10th Cir. 1971). In fact, the primary purpose of the Wilderness Act was to provide:
“[a] statutory framework for the preservation of wilderness [that] would permit long-range planning and assure that no further administrator could arbitrarily or capriciously either abolish wilderness areas that should be retained or make wholesale designations of additional areas in which use would be limited.”
Id. (quoting H.R. Rep. No. 88-1538). To this end, the Wilderness Act removed the Secretary of Agriculture’s and the Forest Service’s discretion to establish de facto administrative wilderness areas, a practice the executive branch had engaged in for over forty years. Parker,309 F. Supp. at 597, aff’d,448 F.2d at 797. Instead, the Wilderness Act places the ultimate responsibility for wilderness designation on Congress. Id.16 U.S.C. § 1131 (a). In this regard, the Wilderness Act functions as a “proceed slowly order” until Congress — through the democratic process rather than by administrative fiat — can strike the proper balance between multiple uses and preservation. Parker,448 F.2d at 795. This statutory framework necessarily acts as a limitation on agency action. Id. at 797.”The quote from the Congressional Record in the case above is particularly relevant, as it clearly establishes that the intent of Congress in passing the Wilderness Act was to “assure that no future administrator could arbitrarily or capriciously either abolish wilderness areas that should be retained or make wholesale designation of additional areas in which use would be limited.” H.R. Rep. No. 1538, 88th Cong., 2d Sess., reprinted in 1964 U.S. Code Cong. Ad. News 3615, 3616-17. In other words, Congress intended to entirely remove both the designation and abolition of wilderness-type areas from the purview of administrative agencies like the Forest Service. Such designations and their equivalents were intended to be under the sole jurisdiction of Congress itself.
All readers please note that Don A’s comments do not contain a single reference to wildlife and nothing about motorized recreation impacts on wildlife flight responses. Instead, it’s all about he and his followers having more “access”, despite having current access to thousands of miles of FS roads. We cannot manage our forests strictly to serve human interests and desires!
Glenn, to be fair, this is what Don wrote in his exact words
“designating a new connector trail, constructing a warranted trail reroute, or using a small trail tractor to perform needed route maintenance or construction activities.” Connectors, rerouting (what I’ve seen is for fish protection/watershed reasons), and maintenance.
Now if I imagine connectors the way Patrick talks about them, riders would go around instead of out and back and drive to next trail and out and back, I don’t know that the impacts on wildlife would be worse by one pass per rider than two passes on each trail, if that makes sense.
Glenn,
I actually mention wildlife, wildfire, and forest health mitigation/management efforts.
Thanks, Don
Glenn, there are several studies that conclude that NON-MOTORIZED activities are more harmful to wildlife species like deer and elk. Predatory animals rarely come with motors, so wildlife species do not have the flight response they do for hikers and particularly cross-country skiers.
I did find one study on the Starkey Forest, outside of LaGrande, that indicated a response from elk to quads. I suspect that has to do with the adoption of quads by elk hunters in recent years. Since I retired, I don’t follow recreation/wildlife issues that closely anymore.
I always thought the big hullabaloo about roadless areas was way overdone.
Roadless areas on public lands in most cases are “tweeners” or “twits” as known by the British.
That is they are in-between in resource values. Not the most productive timber or commodity areas otherwise they would have been entered a almost a hundred years ago. They are also not the most important recreational areas, otherwise they would have been designated as Wilderness. Their value as wildlife areas is likewise limited. As watershed lands they do serve an important purpose.
We as a society have been fighting over roadless areas, while ignoring the other more valuable lands in the public land system such as wilderness, timber growing, and energy lands.
After all these years we are still fighting over designation rather than focusing on management of our public.
It is the management of our public lands that needs help.
I will reply that there are – of course – other studies on flight response that contradict your comments, such as Lance Craighead’s work.
You and I appear to have a fundamental disagreement regarding the state of wildlife in the world and in the US. I live and advocate for the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem, the ONLY place in the country where every pre-Columbia’s species are still found on the landscape. I’m not willing to consent to any management decisions that have potential to impact habitat for species like lynx, grizzly, and Wolverine, who are hanging on by a thread, while their habitat is experiencing death by a thousand cuts, or from major wounds like the runaway luxury development at Big Sky. We need to “save” as much as possible, and motorized recreation has an abundance of places to go. Thanks.
I don’t disagree with your wish to save wildlife species.
My point, is that non-motorized use particularly in winter has greater impacts that motorized use. For example, a snowmobile announces itself and then appears quickly on the landscape and disappears. A cross-country skier acts like a predator slowly moving across the landscape.
I am not a fan of snowmobiles, but I do cross-country ski. But we need to follow the science not our personal biases.
I once proposed to a group of Forest Service wildlife biologists that we drop the speed limit on I-90 for about 30 miles to 35 mph to save Spotted Owl mortality from vehicle collisions. The Forest Service issued the easement, so we did have some negotiating room.
None of the biologists wanted to go there even though for a few years vehicle collisions were a major factor in spotted owl population decline.
One of the cooler SYCU bulletins came across my email last year with a study on this from RMRS doing work in the Bridger-Tetons. Large groups of hikers & mountain bikers were the most likely to elicit a response, but OHVs elicited the most disruptive response.
From the study, “Noise from larger, vocal groups of more than four hikers and mountain bikers caused the highest likelihood of animals’ fleeing, higher than noise from OHVs” … “OHVs elicited the strongest response: wildlife were three times more likely to be on high alert and spent the longest time being vigilant after hearing OHV noise recordings.”
Here’s a link: https://www.fs.usda.gov/rm/pubs_journals/rmrs/sycu/2025/sycu_71_2025_human_noise.pdf
Sharon, Patrick, and others,
Good to see some discussion about “recreation” and dual uses of the transportation system in the this Roadless debate. As you may remember, I/OHV and some others had requested that recreation and transportation be included in the PNWFP Amend. process as key issue, but were ignored. Hope that Roadless considers recreation and the transportation system as key issues in this rule making process.
As an off-road (pedal) cyclist and agency employee, I’ve been wondering about the rec side of things for a while. I am not in the rec shop at all- but there was a boom in gravel/off-road bicycle riding and touring that started about 6-8 years ago. It has largely persisted since COVID, with many cyclists finding that what were essentially road bikes with larger tires could take them on gravel roads with fewer cars and more natural experiences than riding on paved road shoulders. However I do feel that we (the agencies? city chambers of commerce? the cycling industry?) have largely failed to capitalize on the gravel cycling boom on fed lands.
Some few towns have done well to rebrand themselves as gravel cycling destinations, Patagonia, AZ comes to mind. Others have gone the mountain bike route, such as Fruita, CO, proving that with a small but high quality trail network, even a small town can become a destination. I know it takes a collaborated effort between agency, industry and municipality to make this all work, but I have the impression that we have missed a major opportunity in the pedal bike world. I was recently down on the Coronado NF and spoke to a rec guy about the gravel biking in Patagonia, to which he was somewhat aware of, but his (reasonable) priorities were fixing basic infrastructure on the forest like vault toilets and signs.
Regarding Patrick McKay’s reading of the Wilderness Act (which was a response to my question) –
So, the language in question from the Wilderness Act is: “no Federal lands shall be designated as `wilderness areas’ except as provided for in [the Wilderness Act] or by a subsequent Act.”
Here’s how the Parker district court opinion described the then-current situation before discussing the House Report: “Under the Multiple Use-Sustained Yield Act, 16 U. S.C. § 529, this authority of the Secretary of Agriculture to preserve wilderness was specifically recognized.[2] However, prior to the Wilderness Act, the issue of what areas should be designated as wilderness, wild or primitive, and what uses might be made of such areas was entirely within the discretion of the Secretary of Agriculture and the Forest Service. Thus, the administrative decisions with respect to the suitability of an area for wild, wilderness or primitive classification, the need for preserving the natural state of such an area, and the relative values of various resources in the particular area were final and unreviewable.”
The House Report explained that the Wilderness Act, “would permit long-range planning and assure that no further administrator could arbitrarily or capriciously either abolish wilderness areas that should be retained or make wholesale designations of additional areas in which use would be limited.”
The Wilderness Act was adopted in 1964, well-prior to the National Forest Management Act (of 1976). NFMA provided a process for “long-range planning” and the APA prevents that process from being used “arbitrarily or capriciously.” A decision to manage areas “in which use would be limited” is included in every forest plan, and can be subject to judicial review. This is all consistent with the Wilderness Act.
It is defensible and perfectly reasonable to allow federal land management agencies (which includes the National Park Service) to limit uses through their planning process, at least up to the point where it is as restrictive as formal Wilderness designation (and even then, without Congress, it is a lesser, more reversible designation). I have to ask where you would instead draw the line on what uses the agencies are prohibited by the Wilderness Act from limiting through their NFMA planning processes.