At 1.9 million acres, Los Padres is the third largest National Forest in California and includes some of the state's wildest and most rugged land. The forest's spectacular swath of coastal ranges juts sharply upward from southern California's Pacific coastline to a height of nearly 9,000 feet. Its mixed chaparral, oak woodlands and pinyon juniper and coniferous forests are home for threatened and endangered wildlife species, including the California condor, California spotted owl, San Joaquin kit fox and blunt-nosed leopard lizard. And found across its widespread landscape are numerous American Indian sacred and archaeological sites, significant testament to long-time tribal tradition throughout the region.
Thirty-eight inventoried roadless areas on Los Padres protect many of the forest's biological and cultural treasures, including habitat for threatened and endangered species. But many of these special areas and their precious resources will face degradation from road construction and other destructive activities associated with oil and gas exploration and extraction if the Forest Service decides to issue new oil and gas leases.
One of the alternatives that the agency is considering calls for leasing in all unprotected areas on Los Padres National Forest, including 34 of the 38 inventoried roadless areas. The Forest Service states that 74 percent "of the 140,000-acre area that has been estimated to have high potential for occurrence of oil and gas" is within inventoried roadless areas and that 93 percent of the South Cuyama (one of the most important high-potential areas) lies within inventoried roadless areas. The Los Padres National Forest contains-at most-just 0.04 percent of total U.S. oil resources and about 0.003 percent of total U.S. gas resources. Forest Service estimates for the Los Padres pertain to technically recoverable, rather than economically recoverable, oil and gas resources. Therefore, the agency overestimates the amount of oil and gas that can be brought to market if the resources are extracted.
