Roadless Facts, by the Numbers:
- 15,658,000 - Total national forest acres in Oregon
- 1,965,000 - Number of roadless acres
- 13% - Percentage of Oregon’s national forest at risk of being developed over time under the Bush Administration’s plan
- 76 - Number of public meetings and hearings on Roadless Area Conservation Rule in Oregon in 1999
- 79,676 - Number of comments generated in Oregon in support of Roadless Area Conservation Rule (last comment period)
- 2,045,061 – People who participated in outdoor recreation in Oregon in 2003 (Outdoor Industry Foundation)
- Area of Special Interest: The Eagle Creek Roadless area, part of the Columbia River Gorge region, includes some of the nation’s most biologically diverse wild forests. Composed of five major ecosystems, these forests contain over eight-hundred varieties of flowering plants, including fifteen species that exist nowhere else in the world, and provide a home to seventy sensitive, threatened, or endangered species.
All figures are from the US Forest Service, unless otherwise noted. Map of Oregon's National Forests courtesy of http://roadless.fs.fed.us/maps/usmap2.shtml See website for individual maps of roadless areas.
Editorial Comments:
"An election-year maneuver to court favor with rural parts of the West."
-- Corvallis [OR] Gazette-Times, "Keep wild forest land protected," July 15, 2004
“The most important bottom line regarding roadless forest policy in the West is that protection is the right approach. The economic future of the region does not depend on expensive timber-cutting access to roadless areas and old-growth timber.”
-- Oregonian, “Protecting roadless forests,” June 14, 2004
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