A statement from the Southern Environmental Law Center regarding today’s court ruling protecting “roadless” areas on America’s national forests, including 723,000 acres in the Southern Appalachians

Background – Magistrate Judge Elizabeth Laporte of the U.S. District Court in San Francisco today ruled that the Bush Administration 2005 rule for how to manage 58.5 million “roadless” acres on America’s publicly owned national forests was illegal. Further, the judge reinstated the Roadless Area Conservation Rule from early 2001 that provides permanent protection of these wild forest areas. In her ruling, Judge Laporte sided with four states and 20 environmental groups who challenged the Bush rule.

The 2001 rule was crafted after the U.S. Forest Service held 600 public hearings around the country, and received more than 2.5 million comments from citizens, well over 90 percent in favor of strong protections for national forest roadless areas. Last year, the Bush Administration replaced the rule with a cumbersome process by which each governor would have to petition the Administration requesting protection for the federally managed roadless areas in their state.

Virginia was the first state to petition for roadless protection, followed by North Carolina and South Carolina, then New Mexico and California. The agency has accepted the petitions from the southern governors and is currently in the process of working with each state to develop a roadless rule specific to each state. Today’s ruling, assuming it stands, may render the state processes unnecessary since it reinstates the protections of the 2001 rule, which is what the states asked for in their petitions. It is unclear how the Bush Administration will respond to today’s ruling.

Roadless areas comprise about 1/3 of the total national forest land in America and provide clean water, pristine backcountry recreation, and some of the best habitat for wildlife, including numerous rare and endangered species. They are especially important in the fast-growing South, where public lands are at a premium. Only 15% of the land (723,000 acres) in the nine Southern Appalachian national forests is identified by the Forest Service as roadless, well below the national average of 31%. Yet approximately half the nation’s population lives within a day’s drive of the Southern Appalachian national forests.

Statement from David Carr, Public Lands Program Director for the Southern Environmental Law Center: “This is clearly a victory for the many millions of Americans who for years have supported and worked for strong protections for these wild forest land. If I could say one thing to the Bush Administration, it would be: ‘The public has spoken. The courts have ruled. Leave these lands alone.’”