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Wilderness, Planning and National Policy: Protecting the Monongahela National Forest on a Number of Fronts
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by Anna Sale, WV EPEC Organizer | 18, 2004

Across the country, commercial development of our wild forests threatens clean water sources and vulnerable ecosystems and exacerbates taxpayer losses to commercial logging. Here in West Virginia, the Sierra Club Chapter is working to protect our specials places in the Monongahela National Forest with three overlapping initiatives: the West Virginia Wilderness Campaign, our active participation in the Monongahela National Forest Plan Revision, and our efforts to fight the Roadless Rule rollbacks. While each of these efforts is driven by the goal of protecting the Mon's most pristine areas from development, they involve slightly different processes. How all these efforts fit together to protect the Mon bears some clarification.

First, the West Virginia Wilderness Coalition (WVWC), consisting of the Sierra Club-WV Chapter, the WV Highlands Conservancy, and the Wilderness Society, has been working over the last year to secure additional Wilderness designations in the Mon. (See WVWC Coordinator Matt Keller's update on page 3). Second, the Sierra Club and its allies are working with the Forest Service on the Mon as it revises the Forest Plan for the first time since 1986. As Sierra Club member Joe Carney laid out in the Jan/Feb newsletter, this plan outlines management options for all areas of the Forest. Third, Sierra Club members are opposing the Bush Administration's reversals on "Roadless Rule" protections, a policy finalized in 2001 that prohibited the construction of new roads and logging in inventoried roadless areas on our public lands This rule protects areas that, by definition, had few, if any, existing roads and where natural processes are paramount.

Together, Wilderness designation, the Forest Plan, and the Roadless Rule protect the Mon's most pristine areas. They do so in different ways. Congress designates Wilderness areas, which permanently protects them from logging, mining, permanent structures, or road-building. Currently, there are five wilderness areas in the Mon: Cranberry Wilderness, Otter Creek, Dolly Sods,

and Laurel Fork North and South. Currently, less than nine percent of the Mon is permanently protected as Wilderness. The WVWC has identified several additional areas with Wilderness potential, and they have been working with local communities and allies to demonstrate grassroots support to our Congressional delegation for additional Wilderness designations.

Revision of Management Plan

Wilderness designation adds a congressional level of protection, with the 1964 Wilderness Act dictating how such areas are to be managed, and the Forest Plan reflects these designations. In addition, the Forest Plan identifies all of the other management options and indicates where they will be applied for all parts of the forest, from roadless areas where the effects of existing roads may be minimal and management is limited to areas where logging is permitted. By creating categories for different parts of the forest, the Forest Plan outlines what management tools may be used in each area and describes their "desired future conditions." It is by articulating this "desired future condition" and suggesting the methods whereby we may achieve these conditions that we can engage with the Forest Service in this revision of its management plan.

History of Roadless Rule

The Roadless Rule became national policy in 2001 after decades of scientific analysis and a record amount of public support: over two million supportive comments. This rule protects 58 million acres of forested roadless areas across the country from road-building, logging, and commercial development, and would protect over 180,000 acres of such wild forest areas in the Mon. In the Mon, all of our wild forest areas that are not already protected by other designations (such as Wilderness or National Recreation Areas) are open to

road-building under the current Forest Plan. The Roadless Rule should apply to the Mon, covering all the areas identified in the 1986 Forest Plan's roadless inventory. But since the Bush Administration took office, the Roadless Rule has been at risk. The Bush Administration has routinely failed to defend against legal challenges to the rule by the timber industry, and just before Christmas, President Bush temporarily exempted Alaska's Tongass National Forest, a pristine temperate rain forest the size of West Virginia, from its protections. Having already riddled the Roadless Rule with loopholes, the Bush Administration has plans to make the Tongass exemption permanent and open up our last wild lands throughout the country to logging subsidized by American taxpayers. If you have not already, you will soon receive a mailing on these Roadless Protection rollbacks. It includes a postcard so you can send in your comments to Forest Service Chief Dale Bosworth to tell him to preserve the Roadless Rule as the law of the land and to protect our Wild Forests here in West Virginia.

While all these efforts are driven by the same conservation ethic of protecting the Mon's most special places, the processes are markedly different. They involve different decision-makers. For example, Wilderness can only be designated by Congress, so the WVWC has been working on a proposal to present to the state's Congressional delegation. The Forest Plan, on the other hand, is eventually finalized by the Forest Service, a federal agency under the Department of Agriculture, after public comments are accepted and analyzed. The integrity of the Roadless Rule is in the hands of Forest Service Chief Bosworth and others in the Bush Administration.

They ultimately work together, though. For example, Wilderness can

didates cannot have any improved roads, and the Roadless Rule protections ensure that we do not lose any potential candidates by road-building. The Forest Plan Revision identifies and recommends Wilderness candidates to Congress. Each of these decisions will impact the other, and together will ultimately determine the level of protection in the Monongahela National Forest for generations to come.

"The Year of Protecting the Mon"

2004 is shaping up to be the Year of Protecting the Mon. We must hold the Bush Administration accountable for its efforts to roll back protections across the board and deliver our natural heritage to its corporate benefactors. We are on the offensive as we seek Wilderness designations, and we will together define strategies to preserve protections for our wild forests in the Forest Plan and the Roadless Rule. We have initiatives on a number of fronts, as there are a number of decisions to be made and people to influence in the coming months. We will be coming to you as defenders of the Monongahela National Forest's most pristine areas to help us get the message out that there is a better way to manage our public lands than turning them over to short-sighted management for corporate profit. That is to protect the Mon for what it is now, for what it means to the many species that may be found nowhere else in the state, and for what it will mean to generations of West Virginians and Americans to come.

If you have any questions, please contact Matt Keller, WV Wilderness Coordinator at mattk@tws.org or (304) 864-5530, or Anna Sale, Sierra Club WV Conservation Organizer at anna.sale@sierraclub.org or (304) 864-5530.