Road Riporter 11.4 Winter Solstice 2006

Winter Solstice 2006. Volume 11 No. 4

Road Removal Protects Fish and Creates Jobs By Lisa Doolittle and Emily Platt, Gifford Pinchot Task Force

Targeted road removal is one of several restoration projects initiated by the Pinchot Partnership that meets their mission of restoring the Cowlitz Valley in the Gifford Pinchot National Forest while creating high quality local economic opportunities. Photo by Emily Platt.

Inside… Road Removal Protects Fish and Creates Jobs, by Lisa Doolittle and Emily Platt. Pages 3-5 Biblio Notes: How Many is Too Many: A Review of Road Density Thresholds for Wildlife, by Adam Switalski. Pages 6-8

Get with the Program: Restoration, Transportation, & Science Updates. Pages 9-11 Roadless Policy Update, by Bethanie Walder. Pages 12-13 Citizen Spotlight: Roz McClellan, by Cathy Adams. Pages 14-15 Odes to Roads: From a Wonderland Road, by Carolyn Duckworth. Page 16-17

Depaving the Way, by Bethanie Walder. Pages 18-19 Regional Reports & Updates. Pages 20-21. Around the Office, Membership Info. Pages 22-23

Check out our website at: www.wildlandscpr.org

W

hile we’ve tried to avoid focusing too much on politics within the pages of the Road-RIPorter, Tuesday November 7 was certainly an uplifting day for those of us who care about environmental protection. Not only did voters change control of both houses of Congress from republican to democratic, but some of the most aggressively anti-environment representatives lost their seats this year, including Congressman Richard Pombo from California, Congressman Charles Taylor from North Carolina and Senator Rick Santorum from Pennsylvania. Representative Pombo, in particular, had led an all-out assault on the Endangered Species Act and on the concept of public lands itself, with his numerous proposals to sell off public lands to private interests. The loss of these pro-business, pro-privatization members of Congress gives Wildlands CPR staff some hope that we might finally be able to usher in a new era of restoration on our public lands. This hope comes not only from having more environmentally conscious folks in elected office, but from the fact that conservationists might not need to dedicate quite as much time to defending our bedrock environmental laws like the Endangered Species Act. If this new Congress even stays mum on the environment, it would free up a significant amount of time to work on proactive, restorative strategies. For the past six years, conservationists have been focused on defense, defense, defense. While threats and challenges won’t go away completely, conservationists and conservation funders now have an opportunity to move forward with a restoration agenda. And while this should be a broad agenda, there is one vital element that it must include: Dedicated restoration funding. Of course, any restoration work that proceeds on public lands must comply with environmental laws like the National Environmental Policy Act. But it is not these legal questions that have proven most difficult in implementing restoration programs, it is the lack of dedicated, appropriated dollars for restoration. If we can increase the funding agencies put into restoration, then we will see many more restoration programs implemented on the ground, projects like the one highlighted in the cover story of this issue of The RIPorter. This story about collaborative restoration and conservation on the Gifford Pinchot National Forest provides a model we can learn from. The Gifford Pinchot Task Force set out to change the way the public and the agency were approaching national forest management, and especially restoration, and they have largely succeeded. Their biggest challenge now, to complete the work they want to complete, is finding additional funding. Congress has been willing to subsidize timber sales and road construction for decades and decades — now it’s time to shift those allocations to watershed restoration. Not only will this enable us to restore the land that is so vital to our health, but if we take a holistic approach to restoration, it may also allow us to heal long-standing rifts in resource-dependent communities, as people realize the economic and ecological gains that can come from investing in on-the-ground restoration projects.

P.O. Box 7516 Missoula, MT 59807 (406) 543-9551 www.wildlandscpr.org

Wildlands CPR works to protect and restore wildland ecosystems by preventing and removing roads and limiting motorized recreation. We are a national clearinghouse and network, providing citizens with tools and strategies to fight road construction, deter motorized recreation, and promote road removal and revegetation. Director Bethanie Walder Development Director Tom Petersen Restoration Program Coordinator Marnie Criley Science Coordinator Adam Switalski NTWC Forest Campaign Coordinator Jason Kiely Transportation Policy Coordinator Tim Peterson Program Assistant Cathy Adams Newsletter Dan Funsch & Marianne Zugel Interns & Volunteers Carla Abrams, Mike Fiebig, Laura Harris, Anna Holden, Noah Jackson, Gini Porter, Tiffany Saleh Board of Directors Amy Atwood, Greg Fishbein, Jim Furnish, William Geer, Dave Havlick, Rebecca Lloyd, Cara Nelson, Sonya Newenhouse, Patrick Parenteau Advisory Committee Jasper Carlton, Dave Foreman, Keith Hammer, Timothy Hermach, Marion Hourdequin, Kraig Klungness, Lorin Lindner, Andy Mahler, Robert McConnell, Stephanie Mills, Reed Noss, Michael Soulé, Steve Trombulak, Louisa Willcox, Bill Willers, Howie Wolke

Converting recently purchased orange groves into productive wildlife habitat for the birds of Pelican Island, FL. Photo courtesy of U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service.



© 2006 Wildlands CPR

The Road-RIPorter, Winter Solstice 2006

Road Removal Protects Fish and Creates Jobs By Lisa Doolittle and Emily Platt, Gifford Pinchot Task Force

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he Cowlitz Valley of the Gifford Pinchot National Forest is nestled between the Cascade peaks of Mount Rainer, Mount Adams, and Mount St. Helens in Washington State. The Cowlitz River meanders through the valley, linking together the communities of Randle, Mossyrock, and Packwood. The river also ties together the diverse stakeholders of the Pinchot Partners collaborative group. The Pinchot Partnership formed in late 2002 and early 2003 after a field tour organized by the Gifford Pinchot Task Force (Task Force) and a diverse steering committee that included labor representatives, economic development interests, Native American Indian tribes, conservationists, loggers, local elected officials, and others. On the field tour, these stakeholders with wildly divergent interests learned that they shared at least a few things in common: a deep passion for the forest and a desire for long-term stability.

Members of the Pinchot Partnership, from left to right: Bill Little, Red Rogers, Dean Lawrence, Kristie Miller, and John Squires. Photo by Emily Platt.

Over the following years, the relationship between these interest groups was formalized in the Pinchot Partners, and the Partners have developed and supported the implementation of a number of restoration projects that meet their mission of restoring the Cowlitz Valley while creating high quality, local economic opportunities. Early projects supported by the Partners included small thinning projects and culvert replacement projects – restoration that was easy for the Partners to agree on and that helped build trust between players whose previous communication was mainly through barbs and bombs in the local newspaper. It was also at this early stage in the Partners’ development that the group took an interest in the Iron Creek subwatershed, which had been identified by the Forest Service as a high priority watershed for aquatic restoration. The Forest Service and the Partners reached this assessment after reviewing criteria including the presence and state of threatened, endangered and sensitive species; road density and location; riparian condition; and key watershed status (Northwest Forest Plan). Iron Creek is located in the Lower Cispus watershed and has the highest sediment delivery in the watershed – one of the limiting factors in this area for recovery of species including winter steelhead and coho. All these factors combined to make it a compelling subwatershed on which to focus our restoration work.

Trail through former Iron Creek road site. Photo by Emily Platt.

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— continued from page 3 — Our first restoration project in the Iron Creek subwatershed was replacing and right-sizing culverts along two miles of road to restore fish passage and reduce sediment delivery to the Lower Cispus River. This initial project was coordinated and driven by Conservation Northwest. After completing the culvert project, it was clear that this and previous restoration work implemented by the Forest Service was threatened by two road segments at risk of failing and dumping very large sediment loads into the creeks and river in the watershed. However, unlike the previous road where we replaced culverts, there was no need for these particular roads to remain. The road density in Iron Creek subwatershed is 3.1 miles/per square mile, and from a larger perspective there are over 4,000 miles of roads on the 1.37 million acre Gifford Pinchot National Forest. There is also a 40-50 million dollar road maintenance backlog that grows each year. The condition of the road system is one of the greatest obstacles we face in restoring wild salmon to the streams and native wildlife like wolves to the woods on the Gifford Pinchot National Forest. While the Forest Service and Task Force were easily convinced of the need to remove the two road segments in question, others were not. Most notably, a hunter that was a member of the Pinchot Partners was concerned about motorized access. Because the Partners had

been working with each other for about two years by this time, we were able to have very honest and direct conversation about people’s interests and concerns. After a meeting where the roads’ high risk of failure was described, our hunter decided the long-term protection of fish species

The success of the Iron Creek projects has been exciting for the Pinchot Partners and gives us real hope that we will truly be able to meet our vision of restoring the Cowlitz Valley while creating high quality jobs for local forest workers.

and the forest’s resources were more important than being able to drive to the low-use hunting site located at the end of one of the road segments. The meeting resulted in the Pinchot Partners’ decision to support the removal of the 2.2 miles of road in question, and the Task Force has been guiding this second phase of work in the Iron Creek subwatershed. After we decided to remove the roads, the challenge became funding the project. First, we wrote a proposal to one of the Gifford Pinchot’s Resource Advisory Committees (or RACs), which were created by Senator Wyden’s county payments legislation in 2000. (This is the same legislation that de-linked logging levels on federal lands from the funding of schools.) We asked the RAC for $91,500 to address

Restoration projects benefit both the local environment and the local economy. Photo by Emily Platt.



The Road-RIPorter, Winter Solstice 2006

Mrs. Erion described the challenge of finding wellqualified employees, who often come from a logging background and don’t see the value of restoration. On the other hand, those interested in restoration often aren’t as familiar with the hazards of working in the woods, creating a stressful situation for supervisors and other crew members. “All restoration jobs are good jobs,” says Mrs. Erion, “I just wish they would do more.” The Task Force is now completing its work to secure funding for the final two miles of road removal called for by this project. We recently received funding from the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation and Metro Metals that will be matched with additional RAC money to complete the project. The on-the-ground work will take place next field season and will result in the removal of two miles of road with blocked culverts that post a high risk to aquatic habitat in the fish-bearing reach by the road. Removing these culverts will open up more than three kilometers of additional habitat. This road removal project will also reduce sediment delivery to the Lower Cispus watershed and improve habitat for steelhead and coho.

Members of the Pinchot Partnership and staff from the Gifford Pinchot National Forest tour the completed road removal project area. Photo by Emily Platt.

the higher priority of our two road segments. The RAC recommended our project for funding and resulted in the removal of .2 miles of road that was at very high risk of failing and dropping into lower Iron Creek. Large amounts of sediment would also have reached the Lower

Restoration of public lands could be the greatest public works and employment project in our country’s history. Cispus, where winter steelhead and coho would be heavily impacted. Finally, removal of this road segment protected in-stream habitat structures that were placed in Iron Creek in 2000. In fact, with the massive flooding on the Gifford Pinchot this year, it is safe to assume the road would have fallen into the creek. This initial road removal work was completed by one of the most talented restoration contractors in the Northwest, LKE Corporation. Kim Erion owns and operates LKE, the only such business owned by a woman in the Northwest. They work across the West because there is not enough restoration work in southwest Washington to keep them busy. We hope to change that. The Pinchot Partners visited the completed project this year and were very pleased with LKE’s work, which went above and beyond what was called for by the contract.

The Road-RIPorter, Winter Solstice 2006

The success of the Iron Creek projects has been exciting for the Pinchot Partners and gives us real hope that we will truly be able to meet our vision of restoring the Cowlitz Valley while creating high quality jobs for local forest workers. The greatest obstacle we see to implementing this vision is a lack of investment from the politicians in Washington DC. Restoration of public lands could be the greatest public works and employment project in our country’s history. Below we talk about how you can help make this happen. —Lisa Doolittle and Emily Platt coordinate the restoration program for the Gifford Pinchot Task Force and are members of the Pinchot Partners collaborative group.

Action Alert! Support the RAC Reauthorization Road removal and other restoration efforts on the Gifford Pinchot National Forest have been supported in large part by funding from our Resource Advisory Committee. As mentioned earlier, these RACs were created by the county payments legislation, or the Secure Rural Schools Act of 2000. This legislation was a temporary, six-year fix to the problem caused by linking rural school funding to the logging levels on nearby federal forest lands. However, the legislation expires this year, and its reauthorization is desperately needed not only to fund important restoration work like road removal but also to keep funding for rural schools separate from logging on public lands. Without this legislation, there will be a strong and compelling push for greatly increased logging levels on our national forests. Please call your Senators and Representative and ask them to support reauthorization of the Secure Rural Schools Act. 

Bibliography Notes summarizes and highlights some of the scientific literature in our 10,000 citation bibliography on the physical and ecological effects of roads and off-road vehicles. We offer bibliographic searches to help activists access important biological research relevant to roads. We keep copies of most articles cited in Bibliography Notes in our office library.

How Many is Too Many: A Review of Road Density Thresholds for Wildlife By T. Adam Switalski

The majority of studies on this topic have identified road density thresholds for large endangered carnivores or hunted game species. Gray wolves (Canis lupus) in the Great Lakes region and elk (Cervus elaphus) in Montana and Idaho have had the most long-term and in depth analysis. Forman and Hersperger (1996) were the first to review road density thresholds at the Transportation Related Wildlife Mortality Seminar (FL). By comparing previous studies of wolves and mountain lions (Felis concolor), they found that in order to maintain a naturally functioning landscape with sustained populations of large mammals, road density must be below 0.6 km/km2 (1.0 mi/mi2). Several studies have since substantiated their claim.



Elk

Elk are one of the most well studied animals in the U.S., probably because of their popularity as a game animal and their sensitivity to disturbance. Other game species have been linked to road density, including moose (Alces alces, Crete et al. 1981, Timmermann and Gallath 1982) and white-tailed deer (Odocoileus virginianus, Sage et al. 1983), but the amount of data is limited. Lyon (1983) was the first study to report the impact of road density on elk populations. He states, “habitat effectiveness can be expected to decline by at least 25 percent with a density of 1 mile of road per square mile and by at least 50 percent with two miles of road per square mile…..As road densities increased to five to six miles per square mile, elk use declined to less than 25 percent of potential” (Figure 1). A comprehensive review of the impacts of roads on elk was recently published by Rowland et al. (2005) and provides dozens of citations. In addition to extensive documentation of the impacts of roads on elk, studies have shown that closing roads has benefited elk. Irwin and Peek (1979) found that road closures allowed elk to stay in preferred habitat longer while elk in roaded areas were displaced. More recently, Leptich and Zager (1991) found that closing roads extended the age structure and doubled the bulls per cow sex ratio. Gratson et al. (2000) measured elk hunter success in relation to road density. They found that hunter success almost doubled when open road density was reduced from 2.54 km/km2 to 0.56 km/km2. Rowland et al. (2005) reported that road closures may im-

Figure 1: Average habitat effectiveness for elk with road densities ranging from 0 to 6 mi/mi2 (Adapted from Lyon 1983). Elk Habitat Effectiveness (percent)

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he negative impacts of wildland roads on wildlife have been well documented (e.g., Wisdom et al. 2000, Trombulak and Frissell 2000). In addition to road-kill, roads increase animals’ vulnerability to over-hunting, poaching, and the effects of degraded habitat. Despite this qualitative understanding, however, the actual road mileage that would significantly reduce wildlife populations is still under review. A common measure used to gauge the impact of roads on wildlife is road density, measured as kilometers of roads per square kilometer of land area. For example, if there were 2 kilometers of road in a 1 square kilometer area, the road density would be 2 km/km2. In this article, I review studies that have measured road density thresholds for wildlife and report on research that examined the benefits of reducing road density.

Miles of Road Per Square Mile

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prove the animals’ performance, increase the amount of effective habitat, increase hunting opportunities, decrease damage to crops, improve diet quality, increase hunter satisfaction, and decrease vulnerability of elk during the hunting season.

Wolves

Several studies have also measured road density thresholds for wolves (Table 1). One of the first studies to identify a road density threshold for wolves was in Wisconsin. Thiel (1985) reported that wolves could not survive in areas with road densities higher that 0.6 km/km2. The following year, Jensen et al. (1986) documented a maximum road density of 0.6 km/km2 on the Ontario-Michigan border. Mech et al. (1988) found similar findings in northern Minnesota. They observed that wolves were absent if road densities exceeded 0.58 km/km2. Mech (1989) later reported that wolves persisted in areas with road densities greater than 0.58 km/km2 if they were adjacent to extensive roadless areas.

Table 1: Road density thresholds for wolves in the northern Great Lakes region. Road Density Threshold (km/km2)

Study Area

Citation

0.6 0.6 0.58 0.73* 0.7 (with 4 humans/km2) 0.5 (with 8 humans/km2) 0.45 0.23 (core areas) 0.63**

Wisconsin Onterio-Michigan border Minnesota Minnesota Minnesota Minnesota Wisconsin/Michigan Wisconsin/Michigan Wisconsin

Thiel (1985) Jensen et al. (1986) Mech et al. (1988) Mech et al (1989) Fuller et al (1992) Fuller et al (1992) Mladenoff et al (1995) Mladenoff et al (1995) Wydevan et al (2001)

*Adjacent roadless area allowed higher road density threshold **Changing attitudes allowed higher road density threshold Fuller et al. (1992) was the first study to incorporate human density into thresholds. They found a maximum threshold of 0.7 km/roads/km2 with 4 humans/ km2 or a maximum of 0.5 km/roads/km2 with 8 humans/km2 in northern Minnesota. Thus, the higher the density of humans, the lower the threshold for persistence of wolves would be. More recently in the northern Great Lakes region, Mladenoff et al. (1995) found few portions of any pack territory were located in areas of road density greater than 0.45 km/km.2 Core areas (defined as 40 percent use) did not exceed road densities of 0.23 km/km2 and no portion of any pack area was in an area of road density greater than 1.0 km/km2. Wydeven et al. (2001) most recently observed that changing attitudes towards wolves has allowed them to persist in areas with road densities as high as 0.63 km/km2 in Wisconsin.

A black bear is captured on film by remote cameras monitoring wildlife usage of road density study areas in the Clearwater National Forest. Photo courtesy of Wildlands CPR.

The Road-RIPorter, Winter Solstice 2006

There have also been studies that suggested closing roads to improve survival of wolves. Thurber et al. (1994) examined the impact of roads on wolves in Alaska and found that wolves were using closed roads while avoiding open roads. They recommend gating or seasonally closing roads to increase the amount of available habitat for wolves. Carroll et al. (2006) developed a spatially explicit model of wolf habitat in the continental U.S. They found that the amount of wolf habitat could increase by 24 percent if you removed one percent of the roads each year for 20 years.

Bears, lynx, and wolverine

Other wildlife have also been found to have road density thresholds. Black bear (Ursus americanus) populations were shown to be inversely related to road density in the Adirondacks, New York (Brocke et al. 1988). There was a strong negative relationship between road density and population fitness of grizzly bears (Ursus arctos horribilis) in the U.S. Rocky Mountains (Mace et al. 1996, Mattson et al. 1996). Similar relationships have also been hypothesized for wolverine (Gulo gulo) and lynx (Felis lynx, ICBEMP 1996b, 1996c, and TerraBerns et al. 1997 cited in Wisdom et al. 2000). Road closure has been recommended to reduce black bear (Powell et al. 1996) and grizzly bear mortality risk (Frederick 1991, USFWS 1993, Boone and Hunter 1996, Mace et al. 1999), and has been suggested to benefit rare forest carnivores (Bull et al. 2001).

Conclusion

Road density thresholds have been identified for several species, and when exceeded, many species cannot persist. Closure and removal of roads has been found to effectively provide wildlife security and increase the amount of available wildlife habitat. Future research is needed to determine thresholds for other sensitive species such as lynx and wolverine. There is also little peer-reviewed data on road density thresholds for aquatic species such as fish. Wildland managers should strive to keep roaded lands below 0.6 km/km2 (1.0 mi/mi2) to ensure healthy wildlife populations. — Adam Switalski is Wildlands CPR’s Science Coordinator. He is currently studying the extent that road removal restores wildlife habitat in Idaho.



References Boone, R.B., and M.L. Hunter. 1996. Using diffused models to simulate the effects of land use on grizzly bear dispersal in the Rocky Mountains. Landscape Ecology 11(1): 51-64. Brocke, R.H., J.P. O’Pezio, and K.A. Gustafson. 1990. A forest management scheme mitigating the impact of road networks on sensitive wildlife species: Is Forest Fragmentation a Management Issue in the Northeast? General Technical Report NE-140, U.S. Forest Service, Radnor, PA. Bull, E.L., K.B. Aubry, B.C. Wales. 2001. Effects of disturbance on forest carnivores of conservation concern in eastern Oregon and Washington. Northwest Science, 75 Special Issue: 180-184. Carroll, C, M.K. Phillips, C.A. Lopez-Gonzalez, and N.H. Schumaker. 2006. Defining recovery goals and strategies for endangered species: the wolf as a case study. Bioscience 56(1): 25-37. http://www. klamathconservation.org/docs/carrolletal2006.pdf Crete, M., R.J. Taylor, and P.A. Jordan. 1981. Optimization of moose harvest in southwest Quebec. Journal of Wildlife Management 45: 598-611. Forman, R. T. T., and A.M. Hersperger. 1996. Road ecology and road density in different landscapes, with international planning and mitigation solutions. Pages 1–22. IN: G. L. Evink, P. Garrett, D. Zeigler, and J. Berry (eds.), Trends in Addressing Transportation Related Wildlife Mortality. No. FLER- 58-96, Florida Department of Transportation, Tallahassee, Florida. Frederick, G.P. 1991. Effects of forest roads on grizzly bears, elk, and gray wolves: a literature review. USDA Forest Service – Kootenai National Forest, Libby MT. Publication number R1-91-73. 53p. Fuller, T.K., W.E. Berg, G.L. Radde, M.S. Lenarz, and G.B. Joselyn. 1992. A history and current estimate of wolf distribution and numbers in Minnesota. Wildlife Society Bulletin 20: 42-55. Gratson, M.W., and C.L. Whitman. 2000. Road closures and density and success of elk hunters in Idaho. Wildlife Society Bulletin 28(2): 302-310. Irwin, L.L., and J.M. Peek. Relationship between road closure and elk behavior in northern Idaho. IN: North American Elk: Ecology, Behavior, and Management. Editors M.S. Boyce, and L.D. Hayden-Wing, 199-205. Laramie, Wyoming: Univerity of Wyoming. Jensen W.F., T.K. Fuller, and W.L. Robinson. 1986. Wolf (canis lupus) distribution on the Onterio-Michigan border near Sault Ste. Marie. Canadian Field-Naturalist 100: 363-366. Leptich, D.J., and P. Zager. 1991. Road access management effects on elk mortality and population dynamics. IN: Proceedings of the Elk Vulnerability Symposium, compilers A.G. Christensen, L.J. Lyon, and T.N. Lonner, 126-31 Bozeman, Montana: Montana State University. Lyon, L.J. 1983. Road density models describing habitat effectiveness for elk. Journal of Forestry 81: 592-595. Mace, R.D., J.S. Waller, T.L. Manley, L.J. Lyon, and H. Zuuring. 1996. Relationships among grizzly bears, roads and habitat in the Swan Mountains, MT. Journal of Applied Ecology. 33: 1395-1404. Mace, R.D., J.S. Waller, T.L. Manley, K. Ake, and W.T. Wittinger. 1999. Landscape evaluation of grizzly bear habitat in western Montana. Conservation Biology 13(2): 367-377.



Mattson, D.J., S. Herrero, G.Wright, C.M. Craig. 1996. Science and management of Rocky Mountain grizzly bears. Conservation Biology. 10(4): 1013-1025. Mech, L. D., S.H. Fritts, G.L. Radde, and W.J. Paul. 1988. Wolf distribution and road density in Minnesota. Wildlife Society Bulletin 16: 85-87. Mech, L D. 1989. Wolf population survival in an area of high road density. American Midland Naturalist 121: 387-389. Mladenoff, D.J., T.A. Sickley, R.G. Haight, and A.P. Wydeven. 1995. A regional landscape analysis and prediction of favorable gray wolf habitat in the Nothern Great Lakes region. Conservation Biology 9: 279-294. Powell, J.W., J.W. Zimmerman, D.E. Seaman, and J.F. Gilliam. 1996. Demographic analysis of a hunted black bear population with access to a refuge. Conservation Biology 10(1): 224-234. Rowland, M.M., M.J. Wisdom, B.K. Johnson, and M.A. Penninger. 2005. Effects of roads on elk: implications for management in forested ecosystems. Pages 42-52. IN: Wisdom, M.J., technical editor, The Starkey Project: a Synthesis of Long-term Studies of Elk and Mule Deer. Reprinted from the 2004 Transactions of the North American Wildlife and Natural Resources Conference, Alliance Communications Group, Lawrence, KS. Sage, R.W., W.C. Tierson, G.F. Mattfeld, and D.F. Behrend. 1983 White-tailed deer visibility and behavior along forest roads. Journal of Wildlife Management 47: 940-962. Thiel, R.P. 1985. The relationships between road densities and wolf habitat in Wisconsin. American Midland Naturalist 113: 404-407. Thurber, J.M., R.O. Peterson, T.D. Drummer, and S.A. Thomasma. 1994. Gray wolf response to refuge boundaries and roads in Alaska. Wildlife Society Bulletin 22: 61-68. Timmermann, H.R., and R. Gollath. 1982. Age and sex structure of harvested moose related to season, manipulation, and access. Alces 18: 301-328. Trombulak, S.C., and C.A. Frissell. 2000. Review of ecological effects of roads on terrestrial and aquatic communities. Conservation Biology 14: 18-30. U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS). 1993. Grizzly bear recovery plan. Missoula, MT. 181p. Wisdom, M.J., R.S. Holthausen, B.C. Wales, C.D. Hargis, V.A. Saab, D.C. Lee, W.J. Hann, T.D. Rich, M.M. Rowland, W.J. Murphy, and M.R. Eames. 2000. Source habitats for terrestrial vertebrates of focus in the interior Columbia basin: Broad-scale trends and management implications. Volume 1 – Overview. Gen. Tech. Rep. PNW-GTR-485. Portland, OR: U.S. Department of Agriculture, Forest Service, Pacific Northwest Research Station. http://www. fs.fed.us/pnw/pubs/gtr485/gtr485vl.pdf Wydeven, A.P, D.J. Mladenoff, T.A. Sickley, B.E. Kohn, R.P. Thiel, and J.L. Hansen. 2001. Road density as a factor in habitat selection by wolves and other carnivores in the Great Lakes Region. Endangered Species Update 18(4): 110-114.

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Restoration Program Update The Restoration Program has been in full outreach mode this fall, primarily in the Northern Rockies. Marnie gave presentations at the Wild Rockies Rendezvous, a gathering of citizens and activists sponsored by conservation groups working throughout the Wild Rockies region of Montana, Idaho, Wyoming, Washington and Oregon; the Wild West Institute’s Nature Forum at the University of Montana; and the Bitterroot Economic Development District, comprising western Montana county commissioners and economic development interests. These presentations focused on creating restoration economies that go beyond just cutting trees and include road removal as a key component. Along these same lines, Wildlands CPR helped arrange for Sungnome Madrone, a restoration practitioner and advocate from Humboldt County, California, to come to the Bitterroot and Yaak Valleys in western Montana to promote the potential of a restoration economy in these regions. Humboldt County is probably the only place in the country that truly has a documented restoration economy. Locally, the Restoration Program continues to work with a diverse group of partners to implement some of the key recommendations that came out of the June 2006 Montana Governor’s Restoration Summit. The work is focused on coordinating community revitalization with wildland restoration. For example, we are considering a follow up event to the Governor’s Restoration Forum; such an event might focus on the businesses that are involved in restoration, reclamation and community revitalization. Our goal is for Montana to be a model for other state-level restoration and revitalization programs.

Regionally, several Hells Canyon Collaborative members, along with 20 students of Whitman College Professor Phil Brick, inventoried most of the road system in the Overlook II area of Hells Canyon. Phil’s students are currently sorting through all the collected data, and from this inventory we plan to prioritize needed road removal work and get local folks out on the ground doing the work. Finally, the Restoration Program is providing information and potential assistance to upcoming road removal efforts in New Mexico (Forest Guardians) and Southeast Alaska (Cascadia Wildlands Project).

Citizen Monitoring in the Clearwater National Forest (ID)

Adam Switalski, our Science Coordinator, continues to oversee Wildlands CPR’s Citizen Monitoring Program on the Clearwater National Forest, ID. Adam is working closely with Anna Holden, an Environmental Studies graduate student, to monitor decommissioned roads on the forest with citizen scientists. With the field season coming to an end, Adam and Anna collected, cleaned, and made repairs to our field gear.  With most of the data in hand, they keyed out wildlife tracks and downloaded remotely-triggered cameras. A Missoula-based company named Rhithron has agreed to identify our collected insects at a discounted rate.  Anna is leading a group of University of Montana undergraduate students to analyze the data collected by citizen scientists. The class group conducted pebble counts, macroinvertebrate surveys, and collected wildlife detections (tracks and photos) and will analyze all the wildlife data collected throughout the season.

Citizen Monitoring in the Swan Valley – Flathead National Forest (MT)

Adam is also working with Northwest Connections (NWC) to improve grizzly bear connectivity in the Swan Valley, MT. In October, Adam went into the field with Tom Parker (NWC) and the UM Chapter of The Wildlife Society (TWS). About 20 students attended the fieldtrip and helped us collect data and check our remotely-triggered cameras. We collected hundreds of photos of wildlife using the identified grizzly bear corridor. This winter we will continue to work with NWC and students by assisting with a winter wildlife tracking class on our study site. Adam responded to requests for information including: roads and road closure effectiveness for Earth Justice; corridors for Legacy Lands Alliance; road paving for American Wildlands; restoration planning for Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility; road removal for Pacific Rivers Council, and a contact for Woods Hole Research Center. Collaboration is essential for effective, community-based restoration efforts. Photo by Natural Trails and Waters Coalition.

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Transportation Program Update With Forest Service Travel Planning processes gearing up or in full swing, Wildlands CPR has sought to activate voices that speak for quiet recreation and secure wildlife habitat. The passive (motorized recreation) crowd is well-organized, and their assertions need a strong, principled, counterpoint. Wildlands CPR is just completing a draft platform for what these travel planning processes should look like when completed. We expect to have this available for review shortly, with the intention that it will be an important tool for those of you who are already engaged in travel planning, as well as those of you who will be engaged in the future. We are also working with Wild Utah Project to develop a set of Best Management Practices for off-road vehicles (in Utah and beyond), and we expect to have those completed by the early spring of 2007. Tools like this will help conservationists and quiet recreationists provide that critical counterpoint to motorized advocates. In addition to these new tools, Wildlands CPR conducted an on-the-ground monitoring workshop and strategy session this fall for BARK (Bark Out for Mt. Hood) in Portland, OR. BARK is a regional forest watch group that works to preserve the forests, waters and wildlife of Mt. Hood National Forest and surrounding regions. The workshop covered three areas: 1) helping

BARK completes an on-the-ground monitoring of off-road vehicle damage during a workshop with Tim Peterson. Photo by Tim Peterson.

BARK expand their monitoring program from the microdetail monitoring of timber sale cutting units to a more comprehensive look at transportation networks, motorized recreation, and recording off-road vehicle damage; 2) providing a legal and regulatory overview of the new Forest Service Travel Management Rule; and 3) providing assistance with constructing a citizen’s alternative for the Mt. Hood national Forest travel plan. Tim Peterson, our Transportation Policy Coordinator, covered these issues in a two day workshop that included one day of classroom time and one day in the field.

BARK member assesses road impacts in the Mt. Hood National Forest. Photo by Tim Peterson.

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We’d like to thank Tim for the great workshop he put on, and for his investment in Wildlands CPR during the past year, where he’s helped with collaboration workshops, policy assessment, comment writing, legal strategy and more. As of January, Tim will be moving on to a new position with Great Old Broads for Wilderness in Durango, CO. He’ll be bringing his extensive on-the-ground knowledge to their Healthy Lands Program, which provides similar types of off-road vehicle monitoring trainings. It was great to work with you at Wildlands CPR Tim – Great Old Broads will be lucky to have you at their organization. As part of Tim’s move, and in conjunction with the larger travel planning processes going on, Wildlands CPR is doing some restructuring. We’ll fill you in on all the details in the next RIPorter.

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NTWC Update Throughout the fall, the Natural Trails & Waters Coalition (NTWC) focused on building the communications capacity of grassroots and regional members. To improve communications within the community, we developed an online, password-protected “campaign room” available to coalition members. This campaign room is full of useful information, much of it sensitive. Many of the resources found in the campaign room were developed by Wildlands CPR, such as “Planning Pathways: A Citizen’s Guide to Controlling OffRoad Vehicle Use on Public Lands.” We also reorganized the NTWC listserves. In addition, we doubled the number of visitors to the campaign room and participants in listserves dedicated to travel planning and other off-road vehicle issues. Organizations are invited to join the coalition in order to access these two valuable resources by visiting http://www.naturaltrails. org/join-us/. This summer, Resource Media (www.resourcemedia.org) produced messaging research and recommendations at NTWC’s request and with a contribution from Wildlands CPR, the Sierra Club, and the Colorado Mountain Club. Since then we have held a series of conference calls to explain these messaging materials to member organizations in Arizona, New Mexico, Utah, Colorado, California, and Montana, with Washington state and our hunting/angling allies still on tap for this winter. If you need help with travel planning media, contact Jason at Wildlands CPR for more information. NTWC has scheduled the final two in a series of seven regional workshops on “effective collaboration” delivered by the University of Virginia’s

Institute for Environmental Negotiations. Both workshops will be held before December 15, with Sierra Club hosting one in Bend, Oregon and Wildlands CPR hosting the other in Missoula, Montana. In a collaborative effort to equip land managers with the best tools for travel planning, NTWC helped introduce agency decision-makers to the Ecosystem Management Decision Support (EMDS) tool. Over the past year, Wildlands CPR identified EMDS as the premier tool for a landscape approach to travel planning and arranged a successful workshop for federal and state land managers on the benefits and applications of EMDS. This G.I.S. tool — developed by the agency’s own Pacific Northwest Research Station — enables a sophisticated yet graphical assessment of which off-road vehicle routes, roads and foot trails are necessary for transportation, desirable for recreation, and manageable given the values and limits of the landscapes they transect. After a presentation by Wildlands CPR board member Jim Furnish and a meeting with EMDS researchers and developers, agency leadership distributed a memo to regional staff encouraging them to consider using EMDS in travel planning. The NTWC Steering Committee has been working closely with some of our key funders this summer to develop a more coordinated response to travel planning efforts throughout the west. One of the responses is the creation of a new Recreation Planning Action Center at The Wilderness Society in Denver. We’ll be working closely with RPAC and others to continue to address travel planning and off-road vehicle issues on public lands. We’ll have a more complete update about these new efforts in the next issue of The RIPorter.

Creating a consistent, concise, and comprehensive message is imperative for successful collaboration. Photo courtesy of U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service.

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The Long and Winding Roadless Rule By Bethanie Walder

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t’s been two months since a district judge in California overturned President Bush’s roadless rule and reinstated the roadless protection rule put in place under President Clinton. And while this decision is certainly a significant legal victory, no one can predict how long it will last. Before the judge’s ink had even dried, opponents of roadless protection were already declaring their intent to take new legal action. Wildlands CPR has been tracking this issue for the better part of a decade, and it is important to consider some of that history as part of this update.

Background – Two Rules Compared The Clinton roadless rule, as a reminder, protects inventoried roadless areas from most road construction, logging and development. It was never a complete ban on road building and logging, however, and would still allow a significant amount of road construction in roadless lands (up to 2,320 miles of roads could still be built in roadless areas (see RIPorter 6:1). Conservationists had other concerns. For instance, Cinton’s roadless rule had no provision for dealing with off-road vehicle use, which has become a major threat to the integrity of roadless areas. In addition, the Forest Service redefined roads and trails, making it almost impossible to tell the difference between a motorized “trail” and a road — so even though motorized “trails” might look and act just like roads, they were never restricted by the Clinton rule. Still, despite these concerns, the rule was a lot more protective of roadless areas than the status quo. In July 2004, the Bush Administration announced it was developing a new roadless rule that would, theoretically, empower state governments to play a larger role in managing roadless areas. This rule was adopted in May 2005 and created a petition process through

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Alamosa/Monte Vista National Wildlife Refuge, CO. Photo courtesy of U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service.

which state governors could help write the rules for managing roadless areas within their states. Through the petitions, governors could request protection or development of roadless areas; petitions had to be filed by mid-November 2006. All petitions were to be reviewed by a newly chartered Roadless Area Conservation National Advisory Committee (RACNAC), whose recommendations would then be forwarded to the Administration and the Forest Service for action. While this process was intended to empower states, it was possible that a state could ask for roadless protection and the Administration could still say no. If governors chose not to petition, then roadless management would revert to the regular forest planning process. The weaknesses of the Clinton roadless rule were carried forward into Bush’s rule, because most governors who did submit petitions based them on the language in the Clinton rule.

Legal Ping-Pong Shortly after the implementation of the Clinton roadless rule, numerous states filed legal challenges against it. Conservationists intervened in most of these challenges and helped defend

the rule in court, and over time, district court judges issued conflicting opinions on the rule’s legality. At the appeals level, the Ninth Circuit upheld the rule, while the Tenth Circuit was in the midst of hearing an appeal of a Wyoming decision that had found the Clinton rule illegal. When the Bush state petitions rule was released, the Tenth Circuit declared that appeal moot and vacated the Wyoming District Court decision. Numerous challenges were filed against the Bush rule after it was finalized, but governors also proceeded to prepare state petitions while the courts considered these cases. On September 19, 2006, Judge Laporte set aside the Bush state petitions rule and reinstated the Clinton roadless rule. The decision applies to all national forest roadless areas with the exception of the Tongass National Forest, which had been excluded from the Clinton rule through a separate legal settlement between the State of Alaska and the Bush Administration. That settlement resulted in a formal rulemaking process that was finalized in December 2003. Judge Laporte found that this rulemaking had undergone proper procedure and was therefore exempt from her ruling.

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It is important to recognize that one of the reasons Judge Laporte was able to fully reinstate the Clinton rule was because the Tenth Circuit had vacated Wyoming Judge Brimmer’s decision that found the Clinton rule illegal. It is highly likely that the Wyoming case will be reheard, or that the decision will be reinstated, so Judge Laporte’s ruling may be short-lived.

What the California District Court Decided The September decision by Judge Laporte found that the Bush state petitions rule violated the National Environmental Policy Act, the Endangered Species Act and the Administrative Procedures Act. The decision nullified all petitions that had already been filed under the Bush rule. Many of these petitions would have protected roadless areas but now, in the wake of the decision, petitioning takes on a whole new meaning (see below). In addition, Judge Laporte’s decision resulted in a November 29, 2006 injunction against road projects in roadless areas. In the injunction, the court decided not to halt any projects that were already underway on the ground, so several such projects approved under the Bush rule are proceeding. But the injunction does stop projects approved, but not begun.

Interestingly, the case included a specific example of a user-created, renegade route that had been authorized for “reconstruction” through a roadless area. The Court found that the route was not authorized by the Clinton rule exceptions, because it was not “classified,” and the exceptions only apply to classified routes. However, the Court requested further examination of renegade routes, so the injunction is not the final word on this issue.

The Many Uses of a Petition Under the Bush state petitions rule, the only way to secure real protection for roadless areas was for a state governor to file a petition, and numerous governors did so. The governors of North Carolina, California and New Mexico, for instance, had petitioned for complete protection of all the roadless areas in their states. Many other states were in the final stages of preparing their own petitions, some protective, some not. As mentioned, all previously filed petitions are now invalid, because the Bush state petitions rule has been declared illegal. In contrast, under the now-reinstated Clinton roadless rule, the only way to get RID of protection is to file a petition. And at the recommendation of Undersecretary of Agriculture Mark Rey, several states (including Idaho

and Utah) are in the process of doing just that. These petitions have been filed under the federal Administrative Procedures Act (APA) and if successful, would lead to federal rulemaking to overturn roadless protection on a state-by-state basis. The APA rulemaking petitions process has been in effect for decades, and was always available, regardless of the Bush rule. In essence, the September court decision led to an about-face in terms of strategy, with petitions now a tactic of those governors who want to develop roadless areas, rather than those governors who want to protect them.

What Will the Future Hold? It is quite likely that we will see an appeal of Judge Laporte’s decision. Alternately, new lawsuits could be filed against the Clinton rule, or old legal cases revived. In a worst-case scenario, a court could then overturn the Clinton rule again, or the Bush rule could be reinstated on appeal. If the Clinton rule is overturned, and Bush rule is not reinstated, that would put us back to square one, where individual national forests would determine through their forest planning process how to treat roadless areas. But with ten years of roadless advocacy in place this is a highly unlikely final outcome. Given the importance and complexity of this issue over the years, further judicial wrangling could well prompt Congressional action. There have been several previous Congressional attempts to enact the Clinton rule into law, but none have yet succeeded – that could change under the new Congress. At this point in time (that is, press time), we can consider roadless areas largely protected from most formal road-building under the Clinton roadless rule. But off-road vehicle use and the continued proliferation of user-created routes in roadless areas remains a key threat, under any potential scenario. With the Clinton protections in place, it is time to turn our attention to developing some lasting solutions to off-road vehicle use of roadless areas, and the many problems that causes for long-term protection of roadless values.

Large carnivores, like the endangered Florida panther, require roadless areas for their survival. Photo courtesy of U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service.

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The Citizen Spotlight shares the stories of some of the awesome activists and organizations we work with, both as a tribute to them and as a way of highlighting successful strategies and lessons learned. Please e-mail your nomination for the Citizen Spotlight to [email protected].

Citizen Spotlight on Roz McClellan By Cathy Adams

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n 1992 Roz McClellan joined the Wildlands Project, which at the time was involved in mapping wildlife reserves across North America in an effort to reduce habitat fragmentation. As the group drew boundaries around blocks of habitat, Roz noticed the blocks were criss-crossed with lines. “I noticed that the reserves were sliced up with lines” she said, “and then realized that the lines were off-road vehicle trails.” She said the areas appeared roadless, but that off-road vehicle trails had become a new form of fragmentation. “I realized then that our work to map large core reserves needed to start addressing off-road vehicles.” And so Roz switched her focus to off-road vehicles and how they could better be regulated. Roz got her start in advocacy in the early 1980’s helping start an “Adopt-a-BLM-Wilderness” program to protect Colorado BLM Wilderness Study Areas. During the 1980’s she was also active with Earth First! defending old growth forests. One incident led her and a couple of dozen others to get arrested in California for blocking a truck carrying redwoods bound for Japan. In 1985, Roz became director of the University of Colorado’s Environmental Center in Boulder, where she coordinated national conferences on topics such as tropical deforestation, global warming and population and the environment.

In 1992 she founded the Southern Rockies Ecosystem Project (SREP) and for the next six years organized activists to map eco-regions in hopes of finding ways to connect, restore and protect ecosystems. Eventually Roz and the mapping coordinators formed a non-profit, and SREP continues reconnecting habitat to this day. Back in the 1990’s habitat fragmentation was recognized as the major threat to biodiversity, but the role of off-road vehicles was less understood. “Offroad vehicles were allowed to proliferate freely,” Roz says, “because there were no laws against it. Off-road vehicles were continuing the pattern of fragmentation where roads left off,” she says. The unchecked spread of off-road vehicles led Roz in 1998 to branch off from SREP to start a small organization, the Rocky Mountain Recreation Initiative (RMRI), focusing on the fragmenting effects of off-road vehicles. Roz has attempted to introduce the principles of conservation biology into trail planning and recreational policy at the state and federal level in Colorado. She attributes her grounding in conservation biology to conservation champions Reed Noss and Mike Soulé, but saw that few people were applying conservation biology to trail proliferation. “I’ve found that I’ve been allied with wildlife biologists from government agencies and the universities because they best understand the impacts of recreational trails on wildlife.” RMRI works on off-road vehicle issues in tandem with a network of mostly Colorado environmental organizations called the Southern Rockies Conservation Alliance. “What’s unique about RMRI is that it focuses not on wilderness and other issues, but on the biological impacts of trails – motorized trails and mountain bike trails as well.”

Roz McClellan at work with the Rocky Mountain Recreation Initiative. Photo courtesy of RMRI.

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Roz believes dealing with off-road vehicles is important because they are the most transformative force on our public lands today, and unfortunately, many of their impacts are irreversible. “Whatever is motorized will never be wild again, whereas nonmotorized areas have a chance of retaining their wildness. I believe we are in a critical moment in the

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history of public lands. I want to help establish the final balance between what is motorized and what is non-motorized for the foreseeable future.” Roz finds that people she works with around Colorado experience the loss of silence as the loss of something precious. Hikers, hunters and horseback riders are often heart broken by the loss of their favorite quiet haunts and the ability to find peace and solitude. “The work is fun because we’re trying to preserve what is a critical component of the human experience: the ability to experience natural sound.” Other RMRI projects include getting non-motorized prescriptions into national forest plan revisions. When a forest plan is written, the Forest Service decides which sections of the forest will emphasize logging, wildlife, recreation, etc. With each section having a different management emphasis, Roz works to make sure that wildlands are given a non-motorized management prescription. “In my mind, keeping the land non-motorized is a surrogate for keeping it wild.”

“The work is fun because we’re trying to preserve what is a critical component of the human experience; the ability to experience natural sound.” RMRI also has been working to get the Colorado Off-Highway Vehicle Program to consider environmental factors in their grant program. When the state collects OHV registration fees, that money goes into developing motorized trails on Forest Service and BLM lands. Roz has helped add environmental criteria into the grant process. She also worked to protect Wolford Mountain, near Kremmling, Colorado as a quiet sanctuary for wintering elk. Roz believes it helps to work cooperatively with the motorized community. “There’s a lot of anger and controversy involved, which is why it is helpful to make friends with the off-road vehicle leadership. You need to create a sense of respect between the two sides so we can talk to each other; otherwise it’s psychologically damaging to be in an atmosphere of such intolerance.” In 2006, RMRI coordinated a collaborative group of motorized and non-motorized interests, including the Colorado Mountain Club, the Colorado Off-highway Vehicle Coalition and the Colorado Wildlife Federation. The group got consensus from the entire Colorado delegation for a Congressional appropriation (not yet approved) that would go to Colorado National Forests. The funding would help the Forest Service better manage off-road vehicles. Right now the trail systems are undefined, so off-road vehicles don’t know where to go and off-road vehicle routes are proliferating. “Both sides agree that if we get trails designated and get vehicles to stay on trails through enforcement and management then the land will be in better shape.”

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Roz in her element. Photo courtesy of RMRI.

But the two sides don’t always agree. “It’s interesting to collaborate on one issue, while being at loggerheads on other issues,” such as how many user-created trails are going to be added to the motorized trail system. A huge challenge is budget cuts to the Forest Service and BLM that have made them incapable of getting a handle on the proliferation of off-road vehicle use. The loss of field staff and law enforcement allows vehicles to run rampant across the land. “The difficult thing is that the vehicles are already out there. With a timber sale you have a decision up front, but with vehicles they are already out of the barn and you’re doing a rear-guard action.” RMRI is focusing now on the national forest and BLM lands along the Front Range, while other members of the SRCA coalition focus elsewhere in the state. “What I enjoy about the off-road vehicle issue is that it is so new and a steep learning curve. It’s fascinating to try to help craft policy where there has never been policy before.” The downside, she says, is dealing with a lot of disappointment and the relentless loss of wildness. However challenging, Roz remains in the fight. “We are at a critical moment in the history of the Forest Service. The outcome of the new off-road vehicle rule will decisively influence Forest Service lands into the indefinite future. So I plan to stay with the process and try to see it to its conclusion.” But it isn’t always easy. “In this work, you need tolerance for setbacks and an appetite for challenge. This work is not for the faint of heart, you get burnt out fast.” So what keeps her going? The caring and the passion of people she works with. For her, helping them achieve their goals of protecting wild and quiet places is the most satisfying part of the work! When not working to protect Colorado’s wildlands, Roz enjoys playing in them quietly, hiking, running, downhill and cross-country skiing with her husband and two sons. —Cathy Adams is the Wildlands CPR Program and Membership Associate.

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From a Wonderland Road By Carolyn Duckworth Editor’s note: This is a condensed version of an essay that appears in our book: “A Road Runs Through It”

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unset seems to have turned to twilight over northeastern Yellowstone. Then the clouds move east enough for a deep golden light to slant over the peaks, illuminating Specimen Ridge in the mid-distance for five more minutes. I swing the spotting scope up and away from Antelope Creek toward the nearest slopes of the ridge. In this contrasty light, I sometimes can discern a grizzly or two. Once I had in view two bears traversing the slope when one veered downhill at a run, pulled up in sagebrush, and came up shaking the life out of what was probably an elk calf. Tonight, no wildlife drama in sight, I sit back into the twilight, feeling the wind, hearing the faint rush of the creek. And enjoying the lack of traffic. I sit less than ten feet off one of Yellowstone’s major roads, the road over Dunraven Pass, over which more than 4,000 cars pass on a busy summer day as they cross the flanks of Mount Washburn. The pass has been closed for two summers now while the road is reconstructed from the bed up—something not done since the early 1930s when the road was finally made fit for automobiles. It reopens in one month, and I’ve been coming up here at least once a week to enjoy the quiet for a little bit longer.

This year during several days at peak summer season, I counted roadkilled Uinta ground squirrels across the roads of Yellowstone’s northern range. This was a relatively simple task: I learned to scan the road ahead for dark spots and small lumps on the pavement. Approaching one, I’d slow, note the mileage on the odometer, scribble it down along with “gs, eastbound” or “gs, westbound” or “gs, center” in my field journal. Because people have the potential to see elk, deer, bison, coyote, bear, and wolves along this road, it’s relatively acceptable to cruise along at 35 mph instead of the posted 45 mph. On each of these roadkill counting trips, the return yielded different results. A few more ground squirrels would have been killed by the time I retraced the route, and most of the squashed squirrels from the trip out were gone. Only a stain remained on the pavement. Ravens, magpies, and coyotes scavenge roadkills. One time I stopped in an animal jam created by people watching a coyote trying to yank a dead squirrel stuck to the pavement. Sometimes I had to slow as I approached a roadkill because I could see live ground squirrels in the road, eating their dead. This stretch of Yellowstone road was a heavily used trail by prospectors, miners, and suppliers traveling from Mammoth Hot Springs through to Cooke City, a busy mining hamlet in the 1800s. The old dirt roads of that time probably impacted wild animals very little, except perhaps to move elk and other wary creatures away from the route. When you read accounts or look at photographs of that era, it’s clear that speedy travel was not possible.

At the time of the park’s establishment in 1872, European American visitors rode their horses and drove their wagons over trails long established by the tribes who had been visiting and passing through Yellowstone for centuries. The ancient Bannock Trail crosses the modern road system on Blacktail Plateau, northwest of Mount Washburn and Specimen Ridge. I can just barely pick out the travois twin-track winding down the same hill where the current road sends you down in an S-curve. That curve builds up a speed that you don’t even notice once you are on the flat racing 10, 15, 20 miles over the speed limit. In summer, that stretch of road is littered with flattened ground squirrels.

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Motor vehicles in Yellowstone have increased from a few thousand per year in the 1920’s to a few million per year today. Photo courtesy of Yellowstone National Park, circa 1925.

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Some of Yellowstone’s early motorized visitors encounter difficult road conditions. Photo courtesy of Yellowstone National Park, circa 1925.

Yellowstone roads remained the domain of horses and wheeled carts and coaches until 1915, when the first motorized vehicle was allowed in the park. The following year, more than 3,000 automobiles entered the park. By 1920, 13,000 cars and buses were bumping their way around Yellowstone. Today, more than one million cars travel Yellowstone’s roads from May until October. On July 3rd this year, my Dunraven visit came at noon—considered peak travel time on the peak weekend of the year. I counted cars for 30 minutes. Fifteen vehicles passed me as I sat on a rock listening to the creek and watching Parnassian butterflies nectar the blooming stonecrop. The following evening, July 4th, ten cars passed in one half-hour. Amazingly, this road—so famous for its bear- and wolf-viewing—did not extract a huge toll in road kills of any large mammals before reconstruction began. Of the 310 miles of paved roads in Yellowstone, it has the second-lowest roadkill rate of any section: one animal per ten miles per year. During the 1990s, no grizzlies were killed on this road that passes directly through one of their major habitat areas. In contrast, a 17-mile stretch of U.S. 191 on the west side is the roadkill corridor of Yellowstone. It is the only road in the park with a legal speed limit of 55 mph; the actual speed is closer to 75 mph. It is also the only road on which semi-tractor trailers and other heavy commercial vehicles can legally pass through the park. During the 1990s, this stretch of road claimed 461 large mammals at a rate of more than 2 animals per mile per year. The major roadkill studies of the 1990s focused on large mammals— from beaver to bison. I wonder what we might have found out had anyone counted the Uinta mortality on Dunraven Road before the road reconstruction so we could compare the mortality afterward. The new road will be wider, less curvy, and safer for higher speeds than the old road, which often stripped cars of their hubcaps with its deep potholes and high frost heaves.

The precedent began in the first years of the park, when a succession of superintendents begged the U.S. Congress for money to improve foot and horse trails for more comfortable wagon roads. They emphasized visitor safety and comfort first, accessibility to the park’s scenic and thermal wonders second. In the early years of the National Park Service, established in 1916, Stephen T. Mather and Horace Albright set the standards for automobile roads, emphasizing the importance of designing park roads that impacted the landscape as little as possible. Their forward-looking point of view was somewhat maintained after the 1920s when the federal Bureau for Public Roads took over park road construction and maintenance. Roads built in the 1920s and 30s finally changed a tour through Yellowstone from a bone-jarring ordeal to a pleasant automobile tour. They remained the literal basis of Yellowstone’s road system until the late 20th century when deterioration of the roadbeds was so thorough that only reconstruction could repair them. Millions of dollars pour in to Yellowstone each year for this massive project. This highway money is included when federal officials proclaim that Yellowstone’s budget has increased each year during the current administration and that its maintenance backlog is being reduced. Yet employees still live in trailers toxic with black mold and people in wheelchairs must enter some visitor centers through the back door. But the roads will be improved and maintained. Thanks to the daily oversight of park employees, these roads are being rebuilt as sensitively as possible given the constraints of federal highway projects. Unfortunately, they can do nothing about decisions such as the new Dunraven Road will welcome vehicles up to 30 feet long but won’t be safe for bicycles. Nor can they change the fact that improved roads equal increased speeds equal increased roadkills of all animals in Yellowstone.

The first time I came up Dunraven this summer, ground squirrels danced giddily close to the pavement, crossed daringly close to my approach, and chattered back and forth. They were several generations removed from the last ground squirrels to experience the 4,000-cars-a-day traffic. How many generations will be squished before their ancestors’ caution is relearned?

During July 2005, I drove the park’s roads more than usual. Half the trips were to count road-killed Uintas on my way to enjoy the quiet on Dunraven Road. Friends staying at Lake Hotel, in the southern part of the park, provided another reason to drive the peak-season roads. I joined them often for meals and evening drives to look for wildlife, but I couldn’t join them on their hikes far from roads. Several foot problems laid me off hiking this year. That’s why Dunraven’s quiet was especially welcomed and will be sorely missed when the barricades come down and four thousand cars a day pass by.

Most roadkills occur at dusk and at night in Yellowstone, no different than other places. The difference is this is a national park, the first national park in the world, and it set a precedent in its emphasis on individual vehicular transportation.

—Carolyn Duckworth is a writer, editor and naturalist living in Gardiner, Montana. She is one of Yellowstone National Park’s Publications Manager.

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Restoring Justice to our Forests, our Communities By Bethanie Walder

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his fall I had the opportunity to speak to a group of college students about gender issues in the environmental movement. While I used to deal with this issue a lot, I haven’t in a long time, so it was refreshing to see the progress we’ve made in the last ten years in bringing better gender balance to the conservation community. But the context for my discussion with students was broader, incorporating gender as a component of environmental justice. I’ve paid attention to the environmental justice movement peripherally for many years, but I’ve always considered Wildlands CPR to fit exclusively into the realm of traditional conservation. What surprised me was my realization that ecological restoration falls quite squarely within the realm of environmental justice. In fact, restoration might provide a valuable intersection between the conservation and environmental justice communities. If so, then can restoration also help us redefine the conservation movement to incorporate a much broader constituency of interest?

What is environmental justice? The environmental movement has traditionally been split into two segments – conserving lands and wildlife on the one hand, and preventing pollution and its effects on human health on the other. Environmental justice focuses on the disproportionate exposure of low-income people and people of color to toxic pollution, most often caused by the proximity of their neighborhoods to the sources of pollution, like factories. Migrant farmworkers are another population that experiences severe environmental injustices through exposure to pesticides and chemicals. But environmental justice could be considered more broadly than this. It could, for example, also focus on people who live in rural, resource-dependent communities, where the extraction of resources (including logging, mining, oil and gas exploration) has significant impacts on peoples’ livelihoods, communities and even their health. While logging might not cause the same air pollution as a factory, it can dramatically impact water quality, while also destabilizing mountain slopes. In addition, slash burning (and natural wildfire) can cause significant air pollution problems. Or consider mountaintop removal for coal mining, and the profound impacts that has on the people who live below those mountains. Nonetheless, it is not quite as common to hear environmental justice applied to rural communities. At the first National People of Color Environmental Leadership Summit, held in Washington DC in 1991, delegates adopted 17 principles of Environmental Justice (see side bar).

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Highlighted Principles of Environmental Justice To view all of the 17 Principles of Environmental Justice, visit www.ejnet.org/principles.htm • Environmnetal Justice (EJ) demands that public policy be based on mutual respect and justice for all peoples, free from any form of discrimination or bias. • EJ calls for universal protection from nuclear testing, extraction, production and disposal of toxic/hazardous wastes and poisons and nuclear testing that threaten the fundamental right to clean air, land, water, and food. • EJ demands the right to participate as equal partners at every level of decision-making, including needs assessment, planning, implementation, enforcement and evaluation. • EJ affirms the right of all workers to a safe and healthy work environment without being forced to choose between an unsafe livelihood and unemployment. It also affirms the right of those who work at home to be free from environmental hazards. • EJ considers governmental acts of environmental injustice a violation of international law, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and the United Nations Convention on Genocide. • EJ affirms the need for urban and rural ecological policies to clean up and rebuild our cities and rural areas in balance with nature, honoring the cultural integrity of all our communities, and providing fair access for all to the full range of resources. • EJ calls for the education of present and future generations which emphasizes social and environmental issues, based on our experience and an appreciation of our diverse cultural perspectives. As recently as six years ago, these principles were markedly different from the conservation agenda. Since then, however, the conservation community has broadened its message and reached out to new constituencies for mutually increased political power. One example is the addition of an ecological restoration message. In an article by University of Michigan professor Dorceta Taylor in 2000, she compares contemporary environmentalism with environmental justice. She points out, for example, that most contemporary environmentalists don’t incorporate religion or religious institutions into their work, while environmental justice advocates do. But that is changing, and many conservation groups now work with faith-based organizations. She also considers worker health and safety,

The Road-RIPorter, Winter Solstice 2006

and the need to develop environmentally safe livelihoods. Ten years ago environmental justice advocates considered these issues as a foundation of their work, while conservation organizations gave them limited attention. That too has changed, as has our emphasis on the right to clean air, land, water and food. Ecological restoration specifically addresses the need for developing environmentally safe livelihoods by developing economies that heal the land instead of harming it. Ecological restoration has at its base the idea of restoring clean air, land, water and food. Ecological restoration, when practiced in rural, resource dependent communities, also provides an opportunity to maintain cultural integrity.

Ecological restoration as environmental justice In June, Wildlands CPR co-sponsored the Montana Governor’s Restoration Summit. One of the main ideas to emerge was that of pairing urban/suburban revitalization with wildland restoration. Storm Cunningham from the Revitalization Institute spoke about the 12 sectors of restorative development; they address the natural, built and socioeconomic environments. In the natural environment, restoration includes things like fisheries and watersheds. In the socioeconomic environment, restoration addresses things like education and workforce development as well as cultural assets (see side bar, this page). These twelve sectors are mostly consistent with the 17 principles of environmental justice, though they are not nearly as comprehensive. Nonetheless, they help articulate how ecological restoration and revitalization really are environmental justice issues. Wildlands CPR is now leading a follow-up effort from the Governor’s conference that would meld urban/suburban revitalization with wildland restoration. This work has the support of universities, labor unions, conservationists, and, hopefully, rural communities. While the Revitalization Institute supports such efforts, nowhere has a coordinated revitalization/restoration campaign been undertaken at a statewide level. What might this look like on the ground? Let’s take Libby, Montana, as an example. The entire town has been declared a superfund site because of asbestos contamination from the now-closed vermiculite mine in town. Hundreds of people are either sick or dying of asbestosis. Some worked in the mines, but many are ill simply because so much asbestos was in the air, their houses, schools, buildings and shops. Libby lies in the midst of the Kootenai National Forest, one of the better tree-growing forests in Montana. But last year the last mill in Libby closed. The Kootenai has an extremely high density of roads, and those roads are impacting

The 12 Sectors of Restorative Development Natural: ecosystem, watershed, fisheries, agricultural lands Built: brownfields remediation/redevelopment; infrastructure renovation/design/replacement; heritage restoration; catastrophe recovery/reconstruction Socioeconomic: social policies and services; economy policies; education and workforce development; cultural assets Visit http://www.revitalizationinstitute.org/12_sectors.htm

The Road-RIPorter, Winter Solstice 2006

endangered wildlife like grizzly bears, while also degrading water quality. A combined revitalization/restoration project in and around Libby could, for example, consider brownfields redevelopment (revitalization) of some of the formerly contaminated buildings in and around Libby. This could include retooling the Libby mill to function as a value-added work site for small timber products (logged, for example, from fire protection efforts in the wildland urban interface). We could pair this with an aggressive road decommissioning program on the Kootenai that would expand habitat for endangered species and restore key watersheds. Both the in-town revitalization and the wildland restoration would provide high-wage, high skill jobs to community members, while also restoring the built and natural environments within and outside of the community of Libby, ideally providing them with longer term opportunities to maintain a vital and healthy community. If Montana embraced this combined revitalization/restoration approach, it could create a model for the nation. This model would push the envelope of the traditional conservation paradigm directly into the heart of the environmental justice paradigm. If the residents of rural, resource-dependent communities are suffering from environmental injustices, then ecological restoration may offer one way to resolve some of that injustice. Ecological restoration specifically addresses the need for developing environmentally safe livelihoods by developing economies that heal the land instead of harming it. Ecological restoration has at its base the idea of restoring clean air, land, water and food. Ecological restoration, when practiced in rural communities, also provides an opportunity to maintain cultural integrity. Author’s note: As I was researching this article I came across a brand new book title, “Reclaiming Nature: Environmental Justice and Ecological Restoration” by James Boyce, Elizabeth Stanton and Sunita Narain. The book was just released, and I could not get a copy in time, but look for a review of this book in a future issue of The RIPorter.

References:

Environmental Justice/Environmental Racism website: http:// www.ejnet.org/principles.html Revitalization Institute website: http://www. revitalizationinstitute.org/12_sectors.htm Taylor, Dorceta. 2000. The rise of the environmental justice paradigm: Injustice framing and the social construction of environmental discourses. American Behavioral Scientist v3, n4, 508-580 (2000).

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Travel Restrictions Upheld To Halt Off-Road Vehicle Abuse In Utah On September 19, the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals issued a decision upholding the legality of off-road vehicle restrictions put in place by the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) to halt considerable adverse impacts caused by these machines in Box Elder and Grand County, Utah. The motorized recreation group Utah Shared Access Alliance (USA-ALL) sued the agency, seeking to overturn the restrictions so that off-road vehicle use could continue without management oversight. Upon losing in District Court, USA-ALL appealed to the 10th Circuit where they also sought to overturn Executive Orders governing off-road vehicle use. The Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance and Earthjustice, along with Wildlands CPR, Red Rock Forests and Great Old Broads for Wilderness intervened in the case to support the BLM’s long-overdue restrictions on off-road vehicle abuse. The court held, significantly, that an “emergency” is not required before BLM may limit off-road vehicle use on public lands, and that BLM’s decision is supported by substantial evidence of abuse. The 10th Circuit Court found that the District Court properly dismissed USA- ALL’s claims against the BLM.

Murkowski Plans Juneau Road Start Alaska is moving forward with plans to build the first segment of a controversial road linking Juneau to the Northern Lynn Canal and, ultimately, the state road system. The state Department of Transportation has asked contractors to bid on construction of 13 to 21 miles of gravel track while it awaits permits from the Army Corps of Engineers for a more permanent paved road. Gov. Frank Murkowski said the federal permitting process is slowing the road’s construction and could increase the costs of building it.

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Jeep despoils rare desert water source in Pritchett Canyon, Utah. Photo by Kevin Walker, U.S. Bureau of Land Management.

New Off-Road Vehicle Restrictions For Utah’s Factory Butte The Bureau of Land Management has decided to implement “emergency restrictions” for off-road vehicle recreation in Southern Utah’s Factory Butte Area to protect critical habitat. Factory Butte is a popular destination for motorized recreationists. This action has been expected for some time, as the land is the endemic home of the endangered Wrights Fishhook cactus and the threatened Winkler cactus. Factory Butte, located near Capitol Reef National Park, has until now been designated open for off-road vehicle use. Under the new rules, motorized use will be limited to a 2,600-acre “play area” known as Swing Arm City, and 220 miles of designated roads. Officials emphasized that if the new regulations are not honored, the result could be a closure of the entire area. This action was spurred by a petition filed last year by The Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance for a more restrictive off-road vehicle plan, citing concerns over the cactus, and soil and water impacts due to motorized recreation. The Bureau of Land Management rejected most of the petition, but launched an analysis of cactus habitat and found significant off-road vehicle damage to the plants.

The Road-RIPorter, Winter Solstice 2006

California’s Algodones Dunes Will Remain Protected A federal court has ordered that the current off-road vehicle restrictions in the Algodones Dunes of southern California’s Sonoran Desert will remain in effect for the foreseeable future. For years the dunes have been the subject of much controversy concerning off-road vehicles and harm to threatened wildlife. Fifty thousand of the area’s 180,000 acres have been closed since 2000 in an effort to protect habitat and threatened wildlife, including Peirson’s milk-vetch, desert tortoises, and flat-tailed horned lizards. “One has but to drive Hwy 78 across the dunes to see the remarkable difference on the north side of the highway with protected wilderness and the south side with vehicles everywhere,” said Elden Hughes of the Sierra Club. “The north is alive with desert plants and animals. The south side has few plants and no animal life. The rare and threatened species of the Dunes need the protections the judge has given them.” The closures will remain in effect at least until the Bureau of Land Management revises the environmental review for the Dunes management plan and the Fish and Wildlife Service revises the critical habitat designation for the Peirson’s milkvetch.

Off-road vehicles damage fragile desert soil. Photo courtesy of U.S. Bureau of Land Management.

Judge Halts Wolf Creek Road A federal judge on Thursday issued an order temporarily halting construction of a road to a development planned at the base of the Wolf Creek Ski Area, days after the U.S. Forest Service issued a permit for the road.

The developers still need permits from the Colorado Department of Transportation and other agencies before they can use it. The extended road would have been gated until then.

U.S. District Judge John Kane approved a 10-day temporary restraining order requested by two environmental groups. He also scheduled a hearing Tuesday on the groups’ request for a preliminary injunction, which if approved would put any work on hold until the matter is settled in court. The lawsuit by Durango-based Colorado Wild and the San Luis Valley Ecosystem Council in Alamosa is the latest round in the battle over the ski village. The groups want to overturn the Forest Service’s decision that gave developers of The Village at Wolf Creek the go-ahead. The Forest Service on Tuesday issued a permit allowing developer Bob Honts and his partner, Texas billionaire Billy Joe “Red” McCombs, to extend a road from the ski area by 250 feet to link the site of the proposed village and the ski area parking lots.

Colorado Wild and the San Luis Valley Ecosystem Council claim in their lawsuit that the Forest Service didn’t analyze the development’s full impact, a violation of the law, and only looked at the impacts of two roads that would be built to the nearly 300-acre plot of private land surrounded by the Rio Grande National Forest.

Construction had not started in the two days since the permit was issued. “It’s pretty snowy up there, that’s what Wolf Creek is all about,” Honts said. “You just deal with what the judges do. The important thing is that it’s not very long until we have a day in court.”

The Road-RIPorter, Winter Solstice 2006

The lawsuit also claims that Peter Clark, forest supervisor, in August illegally amended the final decision on construction of the roads when he said the developer could start building one of them. The lawsuit claims that Clark’s action undermines the Forest Service’s requirement for two roads. A spokesman in the regional Forest Service office in Denver declined to comment because of the pending litigation. McCombs’ proposed Village at Wolf Creek could have 2,000 residential units for as many as 10,500 people, 250,000 square feet of commercial space and a luxury hotel on a 288acre parcel next to the ski area. The surrounding area is home to fewer than 1,000 year-round residents.

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T

he first real snow fell in and around Missoula on Thanksgiving weekend – reminding us that winter is really on its way. As the calendar year comes to a close, we’re thankful for some of our big accomplishments this year, including the publication of our new book, and the co-hosting of the MT Governor’s Restoration Summit. Not to mention that the Utne Reader included this very publication, The Road-RIPorter, as “media that matters” according to their “Street Librarian.” The Street Librarian “highlights publications whose creators are motivated by passion for ideas instead of profit.” We’re very proud to be mentioned in that context, and we hope that you, our readers, continue to find our newsletter an important one to keep on your bookshelf! And just one quick note of clarification, the Street Librarian questioned why we changed our name from Wildlands Center for Preventing Roads to Wildlands CPR. We changed our name for several reasons, chief among them that the emphasis of our organization is on restoration, which is strongly implied by the concept of CPR. Because our work encompasses so much more than preventing road construction in wildland ecosystems, we thought it was important to have a name that was more encompassing, too. Sorry for any confusion that may have caused. And now we have some people to thank and some people to welcome to Wildlands CPR… A big thanks from us to University of Montana (UM) Environmental Studies (EVST) graduate students Tiffany Saleh and Anna Holden for their research expertise this fall. Tiffany is researching the impacts of road lighting on wildlife and Anna is summarizing the effectiveness of citizen science projects across the country. You’ll see their reviews in the Road-RIPorter later in 2007. Many thanks, too, to Noah Jackson, who has been researching off-road vehicle enforcement for us this summer and fall in preparation for a new report. We’d like to offer Anna Holden a second, but bigger, thank you for her very hard work on our Clearwater National Forest citizen science monitoring project. Thanks to Anna, this was our best field season yet - with more volunteers, more data collected and more data analysis than ever before. We’d also like to thank the National Forest Foundation, which recently awarded us a new grant to continue this project.

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A bald eagle draws its wings back as it comes in for a landing. Photo courtesy of U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service.

With our new grant, we’ve hired Gini Porter and Mike Fiebig, who will each be helping us out on a part-time basis with our Clearwater citizen science program. Gini is an AmericCorps member and will be working with us through UM as a Community Organizer to recruit and train volunteers from Missoula and the surrounding area to monitor restoration projects on the Clearwater. She has a bachelor’s degree in Biology from UM with an emphasis in Zoology and she is currently working on a second degree in Psychology. We’ve hired Mike to work part-time as an Environmental Educator for the same program. Mike is an EVST graduate student and comes to us with a wealth of outdoor education experience, most recently working for the National Outdoor Leadership School (NOLS). Mike will be teaching classes on restoration and road removal in rural Idaho schools adjacent to the Clearwater National Forest, and leading classroom fieldtrips this spring. We’d also like to extend a big thank you to the Bullitt, Harder, New-Land and Page Foundations for their generous support for our work. And we’d like to thank all of you, our members, who responded to either our Give Thanks or our Annual Gifts Campaign appeals. It’s support like yours that enables Wildlands CPR to continue with our work. If you haven’t made a year-end contribution yet, we hope you’ll still consider making a holiday donation to Wildlands CPR. And if you need a belated gift, check out our holiday gift specials at www.wildlandscpr.org.

The Road-RIPorter, Winter Solstice 2006

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Mt. Paulik volcano in Alaska’s Becharof National Wildlife Refuge. Photo courtesy of U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service.

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