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America’s 12 Endangered National Forests Report
WWA nominated the Bighorn NF
as one of the most Endangered National Forests in the
Nation. It wasn’t an easy nomination and consisted of about
20 pages of testimony and answers to very technical
questions. The Bighorn NF won and there will be a report
printed on October 12th and there will be lots of national,
regional and local media about the Bighorn and our efforts
to protect the roadless areas in the last year’s planning
process. We have Don
Located
in Wyoming, the Bighorn National Forest (BNF) spans a large
island mountain range that has been isolated from other
forests in the Rocky Mountains for hundreds of thousands of
years. Surrounded by high plains, the Bighorn Mountains
harbor several genetically distinct subspecies, most of
which are not adequately protected.
The
BNF began revising the 1985 Forest Plan in 1999 and will
finalize the new plan by late fall of 2005. Although 97% of
public comments received for the new BNF plan supported
conservation of roadless areas and creation of five new
wilderness areas, the final revised plan will favor an
alternative that promotes logging and grazing. In fact, the
new plan doubles the amount of timber cut every year to 9.8
million board feet.
The
Forest
The
1.1 million-acre BNF is geologically unique, with remarkable
exposed sandstone, limestone and granite formations, and
stunning canyons that empty into private ranches on the
forest’s eastern border. Relatively protected BLM lands
border the forest on the south and west. Although most of
the Bighorn is comprised of lodgepole pine throughout the
forest, aspen stands are scattered throughout the forest and
old-growth spruce-fir is found at elevations above 8,000
feet.
Wildlife
Concerns
In
the 1985 Forest Plan, the Forest Service had identified 26
Management Indicator Species (MIS), or species that may be
adversely affected by changes in habitat or proposed
activities. But in 2003, the BNF reduced this number to only
six generalist species that will not be as impacted by
extractive activities.
The
BNF contains four genetically distinct subspecies: Montane
vole, American pika, chipmunks and snowshoe hare. Sensitive
wildlife species found in the BNF include the Yellowstone
cutthroat trout, Columbia spotted frog, Northern leopard
frog, water vole, pine marten, sage grouse and Northern
goshawk. All of these native species are vulnerable under
the BNF’s revised forest plan.
Meanwhile, bighorn sheep and beaver
populations have all diminished. Although lynx and gray
wolves occasionally are spotted traveling through the
forest, scientists have not documented any breeding pairs.
The new plan fails to protect lynx habitat and also fails to
encourage activities that will allow these species to return
to their historic ranges.
The Threats: Livestock Grazing
Livestock
grazing causes more significant and pervasive ecological,
geo-morphological, and hydrological impacts than any other
management activity currently in operation on the Forest.
Currently, the BNF has one of the highest stocking rates
(118.000 AUMs) of any national forest.
The agency’s grazing program
has resulted in sever impacts to hydrologic function, loss
of bank stability, serious bank erosion, down-cutting and
sedimentation that has reduced proper hydrologic function
and degraded aquatic habitat for species like the
Yellowstone cutthroat trout and the mountain sucker.
Bighorn sheep cannot be reestablished on their native land
due to decades of grazing domestic sheep leaving spores in
the soils.
The Forest Service leadership has failed to
evaluate the lands truly suitable for grazing and the areas
where grazing is clearly inappropriate, such as research
natural areas; areas of cultural and historic importance;
and impaired waterways.
The Threat: Losing Roadless Acres
Although the BNF is one of the last forests
in the nation to go through the plan revision process using
the old regulations, but one of the first forests to
implement the Bush Administration’s radically new and
harmful methodology for inventorying roadless areas. As part
of the original Roadless Area Conservation Rule, forest
managers identified 620,000 acres of RARE II lands on the
BNF. As a result of policy rule changes for mapping and
modeling roadless areas, the forest plan revision now
identifies only 490,000 acres. The Bighorn may have lost
158,000 roadless acres or 24% of the original inventory, but
the tragic endangerment will come from the new plan that
opens up more than 80% of the inventoried roadless areas to
logging and development for the next 20 years.
The
Threat: Taking the Public out of
Public Lands
Historically, the timber
industry has exerted a strong influence over the management
of the BNF and industry demands have often trumped public
concerns. In 1999, the BNF began revising the 1985 Forest
Plan, and by 2004, the agency had received more than 16,000
public comments in support of conservation of roadless
areas, and designation of five new wilderness areas. These
comments, which reflected 97% of the total received, also
strongly encouraged the USFS to identify recreation as the
predominate use of the BNF. To the dismay of those in
support of conservation, the final forest plan allowed for
increased logging and road building in both roadless areas
and in areas that contain old-growth forest. Once again, the
pubic was ignored in order to serve the local politics of
resource extraction.
The
Wood Market
Although
the market for wood products sourced from the BNF is
relatively small compared to other regions, Montana and
Wyoming sawmills do purchase timber sales from the BNF.
Wyoming Sawmills,
The timber sale program on the BNF is one of the USFS’s largest financial drains. Timber sales lose an average of $1,365 per acre logged, or -$125 per thousand board feet cut. When tallied against the 25% payments to Wyoming counties, 100% of the receipts never reached the federal treasury. |
Riley Point fire
and salvage sale