JoseCuervo
New member
As someone who spends a lot of time on Idaho's rivers and trout waters, the connection between Idaho's prized fisheries, clean water and remaining roadless areas seems literally as clear as a mountain stream.
I have been a fly-fisherman since my father taught me to cast flies when I was 6. I have worked for Idaho Fish and Game, conducting snorkel surveys of our state's waters to assess the fish living in them.
Today, I am lucky enough to make my living as a fishing guide, spending my days on the Salmon, the Big Lost, the Big Wood, and Silver Creek, and other streams that make Idaho famous.
Idaho's clean water is important for both the economy of my household and of our state. But our roadless areas are important in ways that cannot be measured in dollars and sense.
Recently, the fish conservation group Trout Unlimited released a report that illustrates just how important Idaho's roadless areas are for our hunting and fishing heritage. Here are some highlights of what the report found:
• Some 58 percent of the remaining habitat for Westslope Cutthroat Trout is in roadless areas.
• Some 74 percent of Idaho's remaining Chinook Salmon habitat is in our roadless areas.
• Some 74 percent of Idaho's remaining Steelhead habitat is in roadless areas.
Even if an angler never sets foot in a roadless area, those areas provide spawning habitat and clean water that benefit anglers for many miles downstream. That clean water also benefits irrigators, livestock producers and boaters.
Recently, The Idaho Statesman ran an article about how salmon fishing provides a needed flush of cash to towns like Riggins. "It blew the top off my business," one local said.
Rapid River's roadless timbered canyon protects the water quality and the river holds its cold temperature further downstream than most rivers. The Rapid River Chinook hatchery, which supplies fish for Riggins anglers, depends on that water.
Roadless areas also benefit those of us who pursue popular big game animals such as bighorn sheep, mountain goats, elk and mule deer. In short, our biggest bucks and bulls, our longest and most generous hunting seasons, are found in roadless areas.
Roadless areas also provide unmatched opportunities for solitude and for the sense of freedom that is integral to hiking, hunting and fishing.
Idaho is blessed with about 9 million acres of roadless National Forests and 4 million acres on land managed by the Bureau of Land Management. This "roadless" character is part of what makes Idaho unique. This is a priceless asset for Idahoans today and tomorrow.
As assets become scarce, they become even more important, and as roadless areas across the globe are becoming increasingly rare, these areas will become even more important to Idahoans.
So it's troubling that the Bush administration is trying to undermine established Forest Service policy to not build more roads in roadless areas. Hunters, anglers, biologists and other experts from Idaho and around the country have loudly supported leaving our remaining roadless areas alone.
The roadless rule also received overwhelming support from the American people in the largest public process to date at more than 600 public meetings. In an effort to bypass the will of the American people as expressed in the roadless rule, the Bush administration is proposing to empower state governors as the authority over National Forests.
Some of the politicians have said that the existing roadless rule did not take into account the "stakeholders." Let the American people remind our politicians, this is public land and the stakeholders are the American people, who have already spoken strongly in favor of roadless area protection.
There are enough roads (if not too many) on national forests to provide recreational access and management actions. The Forest Service road network is 12 times longer than our entire interstate highway system.
The Forest Service lacks funds to maintain its existing roads — and doesn't need to spend more money to build more roads in our last wild places. To me, and to the majority of the American people, protecting our roadless areas only makes sense.
Please join me in asking the Forest Service to protect our roadless areas. We have 60 days to comment. Write to: Content Analysis Team, Attn: Roadless State Petitions, P.O. Box 221090, Salt Lake City, UT 84122.
Or e-mail: [email protected]
Carl Evenson of Bellevue is a fishing guide and fisheries biologist.
