The Importance of Colorado’s Roadless Areas
Roadless areas are locations with few or no roads open to motor vehicle use. Often, they are remote areas with rugged terrain that provide the highest quality habitat for wildlife species such as lynx, wolverine, bear and goshawk that need large areas with minimal human disturbance. Roadless areas also protect sources of much of Colorado’s clean drinking water; provide excellent areas for scientific research and education on natural ecosystems; and offer numerous opportunities for low-impact recreation.
 
For more info on Colorado’s roadless areas go to www.roadless.net

The Draft Colorado Rule
The draft Colorado rule would replace the 2001 Roadless Rule’s narrowly-tailored exceptions with very broad authorizations for road construction and logging in roadless areas. The Roadless Rule, currently in effect, already allows timber cutting and road building when needed to reduce wildfire risk, protect endangered species habitat, or for pre-existing rights such as oil and gas leases.  The draft rule, however, takes these legitimate exceptions and rewrites them to allow many more destructive activities, such as logging in wild areas far removed from homes and other structures, logging in areas that are already high quality wildlife habitat because they are largely free of intensive human presence and habitat degradation, the development of even more oil and gas leases in roadless areas that were issued since the 2001 Rule became effective, and construction and permanent roads for new power lines and water conveyances (pipes, ditches, canals, tunnels, etc.) in roadless areas.  The draft rule would also completely remove over 200,000 acres from the roadless inventory, including lands wanted by ski areas for future ski area expansions.
 
A strong showing of support for protecting Colorado’s national forest roadless areas is crucial to stop the draft rule from becoming final.

Background
In early 2001, the Forest Service issued the Roadless Area Conservation Rule, under which logging and road construction were prohibited in national forest roadless areas nationwide, with a few balanced exceptions for public health and safety and for valid existing rights. This Rule had, and still has, very strong support nationwide, but the Bush Administration attempted to block the rule’s implementation and replace it with a proposal under which each state Governor could ask the Forest Service to manage that state’s roadless areas in the manner that Governor desired. In 2006, a federal judge found the Bush Administration’s actions illegal and reinstated the 2001 rule. Most states decided to rely on the protection provided by the 2001 Rule, but Colorado and Idaho decided to move ahead and petition the Forest Service for state-specific roadless area management under another law.

What You Can Do

Submit Written Comments
Write a letter, strongly supporting continued full protection for all of Colorado’s national forest roadless areas under the 2001 Roadless Rule. Describe your use of national forest roadless areas in Colorado, including any specific roadless areas you visit, and the importance they have for you. State that under the proposed rule, Colorado’s roadless areas would have much less protection than they currently have, but they deserve full protection.

Insist on the following changes to the draft rule:

• Road construction and logging for fuel reduction must be limited to areas immediately adjacent to homes, where such efforts would be the most effective.

• Logging for wildlife must be limited to areas where maintenance of habitat for threatened or endangered species is needed, as it is under the 2001 Rule.

• Any Colorado Rule must prevent surface disturbance from oil and gas leases issued in roadless areas after the 2001 Rule became effective.

• No construction of new powerlines and water conveyances in roadless areas. 

• Potential ski areas expansions in roadless areas must remain in the roadless inventory.