Protection for the Roadless Areas.

Picture stolen from here.

Ketchikan, Alaska - Tongass National Forest Supervisor Forrest Cole recently signed the Emerald Bay Record of Decision, approving the harvest of approximately 16 million board feet of timber from 600 acres on the Cleveland Peninsula to provide nearly 90 jobs in Southeast Alaska. The proposed project area is located approximately 40 air miles north of Ketchikan within the Ketchikan-Misty Fiords Ranger District.

The Emerald Bay project includes the construction of approximately 6 miles of new low-impact road within the Cleveland Inventoried Roadless Area.

This, I don't much care for. I am astonished that it is possible for a single person in an un-elected position to have the power to make this sort of decision. How is it possible that a Forest Service Supervisor can single handedly destroy a roadless area, by deciding that it is in the best interest of a balanced forest management plan. Because he never asked me I guess. Once they build the roads -- I guess they can take that area out of the inventoried roadless areas. That should make it a lot easier to run the bulldozers.

The inventoried roadless areas, for those that don't know, represent the areas determined to be wilderness -- meaning free of evidence of human improvements. These are areas that have been set aside during the Clinton presidency with the intent of conservation, and the policies of the Bush administration and the Forest Service intend to undermine that intent of protection (http://www.lcv.org/president-and-congress/issues/page.jsp?itemID=28176181) despite the desire of the American public to the contrary. This q&a page claims that there are over 50 projects pending in roadless areas in the Tongass NF alone.

This appears to be a better less misguided decision -- with the key point being -- no new roads will be required.

This is what looks to be hope for the Cleveland Roadless area.