Roadless Facts, by the Numbers:
- 16,893,000 - Total national forest acres in Montana
- 6,397,000 - Number of roadless acres
- 38% - Percentage of Montana’s national forest land at risk of being developed under the Administration’s proposed plan
- 31 - Number of public meetings and hearings on Roadless Area Conservation Rule in Montana 2000
- 13,086 - Number of comments generated in Montana in support of the Roadless Area Conservation Rule in 2000 – 80% of the total
- 567,451 – People who participated in outdoor recreation in Montana in 2003 (Outdoor Industry Foundation)
- Area of Special Interest: Montana’s Rocky Mountain Front stretches south from Glacier National Park for over a hundred miles. It is a place of unparalleled natural beauty with massive limestone cliffs that gaze out onto a Great Plains virtually unchanged since the days of Lewis and Clark. With the exception of wild bison, the full complement of native wildlife still inhabits the Front and are dependent on the vast areas of roadless forest that run the length of the area. Hunters, hikers and fishermen from all over the country are drawn by its uniqueness.
All figures are from the US Forest Service, unless otherwise noted. Map of Montana's National Forests courtesy of http://roadless.fs.fed.us/maps/usmap2.shtml See website for individual maps of roadless areas.
Editorial Comments:
“Reform is long overdue -- but not this one. Federal lands are political lands and heavy subsidies are the norm. The full costs of exploitation have been ignored, discounted, and obscured. Economically wasteful and ecologically destructive projects, e.g., below-cost timber sales and subsidized irrigation schemes, demonstrate the perverse incentives that drive federal management.”
-- The Bozeman Daily Chronicle, “Roadless plan wrong, shortsighted reform,” July 21, 2004
“It won’t take too many road-building petitions from logging-happy governors to rekindle largely dormant interest nationwide in formally, permanently protecting notable roadless areas – not with another all-too-easy-to-change rule, but with congressional designations adding them to the system of protected wilderness.”
-- Missoula Missoulian, “Governors may ask, but will they receive?; Roadless rule change may not produce roads to ruin, but could bring a backlash,” July 18, 2004
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