Dear Colleague,
Please find attached a sign-on letter [ECOLOG readers: inserted as
text below] addressing the critical need to protect the remaining undeveloped
portions of our national forests. The letter is designed to summarize the
scientific merits of the Roadless Rule as an important tool to preserving
intact forests, particularly as global climate change makes their integrity
both more important and at greater risk.
The letter urges the Obama Administration to take early action to
uphold and implement the Roadless Rule throughout all national forests, thereby
reversing recent actions by the Bush Administration that undermine the Rule's
original purpose and put some of the country's last swaths of intact forest at
immediate risk.
I hope you will consider joining me in this important endeavor.
Please reply to [email protected]<mailto:[email protected]> with your name,
affiliation, contact information, and electronic signature to do so.
Thank you in advance for your consideration.
Sincerely,
Thomas Lovejoy
January X, 2009
The President The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Ave.
Washington, DC 20500
Re: The Roadless Area Conservation Rule
Dear Mr. President:
We write to applaud your commitment to protecting the remaining undeveloped and
roadless areas within the national forests of the United States and to urge you
to take early, decisive action to defend, embrace, and implement the 2001
Roadless Area Conservation Rule (Roadless Rule) on all acres that it covers. As
scientists working in natural resource-related disciplines including biology,
forest ecology, climatology, geology, aquatic ecology, fisheries, soil science,
and natural resource management, we are greatly concerned about the continuing
loss and fragmentation of the nation's forests.
The final Roadless Area Conservation Rule, issued January 12, 2001, was an
important step towards preserving the invaluable ecological benefits that
intact forests provide. Now, as the realities of global climate change become
ever more apparent, the critical need to preserve these last remaining, intact
roadless areas within the national forests could not be more urgent. The
importance of maintaining large terrestrial carbon stores, particularly in
forests, is swiftly being recognized as a critical element in addressing
climate change. To avoid climate catastrophe we must reverse global
deforestation which contributes 20 percent of the world's climate pollution and
impoverishes the land of critical refugia for the world's already threatened
biodiversity.
Scientific research has amply documented the greater health and resiliency of
intact forest ecosystems versus those disturbed by roads and logging. Less
disturbed forests are less susceptible to tree diseases, insect attacks, and
invasions from non-native species, and less likely to have suffered the adverse
effects of fire suppression. These healthier ecosystems are in turn more able
to withstand the effects of global climate change and act as refugia for
sensitive wildlife and plant species, many of which are vulnerable to
extirpation in more developed areas. Thus, intact forests can serve as vital
reservoirs and safety nets, as surrounding landscapes become genetically
impoverished and fragmented, greatly impeding species' abilities to adapt to
the increasing stress of global warming.
Intact forests play an important role in the function of watersheds and aquatic
ecosystems. They are spared the potentially massive soil erosion that can
accompany road building and logging, which fouls streams and rivers. As a
result, roadless areas in our national forests contain some of the most intact
aquatic ecosystems in the country, including some of the healthiest salmon
stocks. Intact forests provide direct watershed benefits to people by reducing
flood threats and supplying clean sources of drinking water. In fact, National
Forests and Grasslands are the largest single source of water in the
continental U.S., contributing nearly 20 percent of the Nation's water supply.1
It is particularly important that immediate action be taken before recently
planned development goes forward in roadless areas, both permanently degrading
these ecosystems and setting a dangerous precedent. A prime example of this is
the Tongass National Forest in Alaska. Our largest expanse of intact forest,
and the heart of the world's remaining coastal rainforest, the Tongass
represents one of North America's largest carbon sinks, some of the richest,
most biologically productive land on earth, and constitutes 30 percent of the
world's unlogged coastal temperate rainforest2. Its old-growth trees live 200
to 700 years, with yellow cedar living 1,000 years or more. These large
expanses of ancient forest are critical to maintaining a wide variety of
wildlife, including the world's largest concentration of bald eagles3, endemic
species like the Alexander Archipelago wolf, and more grizzly bears per square
mile than anywhere on the globe4. Despite this, new logging could begin in
Tongass roadless areas as soon as this Spring under a "temporary" exemption
issued by the Bush administration.
Considering all of the above reasons, it is imperative that early action be
taken in the Tongass-and throughout the country-to uphold the Roadless Rule.
Doing so will help preserve the important ecological benefits of the remaining
undeveloped 30% of our national forests (an area that represents only 2% of the
country's land area).
Again, we thank you for your pledge to revitalize our country's leadership in
addressing critical environmental issues here and abroad and urge you to
implement and vigorously administer the Roadless Area Conservation Rule. Thank
you for considering our views on this matter of vital importance to the
nation's ecological health.
Respectfully yours,
1USDA Forest Service. "Healthy Waters Fact Sheet". 2007.
http://www.fs.fed.us/biology/resources/pubs/watershed/waterfacts_101907.pdf
(December 9, 2008)
2 Kramer, M., A.J. Hansen, M.L. Taper, E.J. Kissinger. 2001. ABIOTIC CONTROLS
ON LONG-TERM WINDTHROW DISTURBANCE AND TEMPERATE RAIN FOREST DYNAMICS IN
SOUTHEAST ALASKA. Ecology. 82(10): 2749-2768
http://www.homepage.montana.edu/~hansen/documents/downloadables/ecology.pdf;
3 USDA Tongass SEIS. February 2003. Vol. 1. Page 178
4 USDA Tongass SEIS. February 2003. Vol. 1. Page 177 and
http://www.fs.fed.us/r10/tongass/districts/admiralty/fwe/index.shtml
