Colorado is fortunate to have seven National Forests that offer some of the most pristine wilderness found anywhere. Earlier this month, Colorado submitted a request to Agriculture Secretary Vilsack asking him to adopt Colorado's Roadless Rules, which seek to protect just over four (4) million acres of roadless areas within those National Forests. This is an important issue locally and nationally. The U.S. Forest Service has built and maintains approximately 374,883 miles of road within the National Forests. Lay them out end to end and you could travel around the world 15 times! One estimate has suggested that only 6% of Colorado's National Forests lay more two (2) miles from a road. More importantly, roads may be the single most important object that falls squarely between the Forest Service's role of maintaining the multi-use of our public lands.

The U.S. Forest Service is charged with balancing between protecting our public lands for both the cultural heritage they represent and the outdoor/recreational opportunities they provide with the need to use their resources for our very livelihood. The resources they provide allow us to power our industry and live the lives to which we are accustomed. This balancing act is where roads come in. You can't access resources without roads, but they also cause massive damage to the environment. In a nutshell, you can't have one without the other. So, how do you balance it out.

In 2001, as he was leaving office, President Clinton put the Roadless Area Conservation Rule into place, essentially halting road construction until further environmental impact studies could be impacted. In 2005, President Bush changed part of these and opened some areas to road building. Different lawsuits challenged both the original rule, and Bush's changes to it. Different rulings in two different Federal District Courts have left the final interpretation still open to question. A final decision is expected from the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals later this year.

Because of the challenges and uncertainty of the Federal rule, Colorado started a process to create their own rules. After over four years of studies and public comment, this final version was submitted to Secretary Vilsack. Currently, Idaho is the only state to have their own state roadless rule. Colorado's proposed rule would add 400,000 acres to the roadless inventory, ban road construction for new oil and gas development, allow roads for new coal mines, and allow roads for removal of dead timber due to the pine beetle infestation.

As you can imagine, some people support the proposed state rule, while others don't. Conservationists and outdoor sportsman say it doesn't do enough to protect prime hunting and fishing. Recently, 500 scientists sent a petition to President Obama asking him to ignore it and support the 2001 Federal Rule (which banned all road building essentially) because it doesn't protect the land as well as it claims to. Others, more concerned about industry and economic impacts, say it goes too far. It doesn't allow for the development of necessary resources (oil and gas) which has a negative impact on national energy supplies, but also to the local economy.

So, who is right? Well, probably both sides. See, that's the tricky thing about being the U.S. Forest Service. Their very charge seems to have them aiming for two goals that are almost perfectly opposed to one another: extract resources from the very land you have to protect. For people who see the need for the natural resources, you have to have roads. For those wanting to keep the wilderness, you can't have roads. The trick, then, is how to strike a balance. The U.S. Forest Service will never please everyone on this issue, so my only hope is that they do the best, most honest, job you can.