Summary

In 2020, Friends of the Clearwater completed an investigation into the impacts of the 2001 USFS Roadless Area Conservation Rule (RACR) in Montana and the 2008 Idaho Roadless Rule in Idaho. Using federal documents, our inventory showed that the US Forest Service authorized logging and roadbuilding on over 50,000 acres of roadless public land in both states.

Our report details how these exceptions have become the norm, and shows that tacit confidence in the 2001 Roadless Rule is misplaced. USFS abuse of loopholes in the Roadless Rule is constant, and growing. Idaho's Roadless Rule is even weaker. Only significant change to the rules, or large-scale congressional wilderness designations will protect these areas from further development, exploitation, and degradation.

Background

Protecting wild places requires knowing what (and where) wild places are. Since the early 20th century, one barometer of "wildness" or "development" has been the absence or presence of roads. Roads are vectors for human influence, both passive (like sediment pollution) and active (like clearcutting). Large, undeveloped areas without roads are rare, and increasingly crucial for wildlife conservation and wilderness preservation.

Most publicly-owned, un-roaded, undeveloped areas over 5,000 acres in size were mapped and named via the Roadless Area Review and Evaluation II (RARE II) in 1978. These "Inventoried Roadless Areas" or IRAs, have been in conservation limbo ever since; these lands qualify for wilderness protections, but lack congressional designation.

In the 1990s, the federal government began a process to establish formal regulations for these areas. This process finished in 2000 and was enacted as Forest Service regulation in 2001.

This rule, the 2001 USFS Roadless Rule, was seen as a victory by most conservation groups. In 2008, the Idaho Roadless Rule set a more pro-exploitation directive for IRA management in Idaho.

Analysis

Friends of the Clearwater wanted to assess if these regulations were effective on the ground. In north-central Idaho, some projects that target roadless public land had been approved to our knowledge. We suspected more impacts in Idaho and Montana, but only deeply knew our own mission area.

After accessing federal data via FOIA requests, and comparing to the public record, FOC established acreages for how much roadless development had taken place in Idaho and Montana.

Virtually unknown to the general public, IRAs in both states had been developed. The Forest Service had authorized roughly the development of 39,000 acres of wild roadless areas in Montana and 18,000 acres in Idaho. Most of the time, this is through a loophole that provides for limited extraction under the deceptive goal of "habitat restoration". The USFS authorizations for roadbuilding and timber production through this loophole have been increasing since 2012.

You can read the entire report below.

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