The outdoor industry generates approximately $33 billion a year from the sale of outdoor recreation equipment and apparel. Industry leaders have long maintained that keeping backcountry roadless lands protected is important to their customers and businesses.
“America's pristine roadless forests are public assets that provide our customers with incredible recreational opportunities,” commented Casey Sheahan, CEO of Patagonia. “Without these wild backcountry lands, our business opportunities would be significantly restricted.”
Founder of Ruff Wear, Patrick Kruse added, “Pristine forests provide an environment where all who engage in outdoor activities including Ruff Wear employees, and their dogs, can venture out to recharge and recreate. Loss of these valuable resources sets up a domino effect where, businesses, local economies and you and I will have to endure undesirable consequences. Sure, there is the negative financial impact on outdoor businesses to consider. More importantly there is the question of what kind of quality experience can our forests offer if the destructive US Forest Service proposals in roadless lands are allowed to move forward?”
An article in the March 31st Wall Street Journal highlighted how the outdoor recreation industry is weighing in against plans to open roadless wild areas to logging and development.
Dave Knutson from Chaco, a business that makes outdoor footwear and river sandals, noted that many of their customers are whitewater rafting guides. “Our river guide customers rely on wild and pristine roadless lands for their livelihoods, and we rely on our customers,” said Knutson. “Without these outstanding backcountry areas to recreate in, both our customers and our business would suffer.”
Current US Forest Service proposals to carry out logging projects and other destructive activities in roadless lands has also ignited controversy among outdoor recreation groups, hunters, anglers, and conservationists. These groups point to public statements made by Undersecretary of Agriculture Mark Rey, who assured Americans that roadless lands would be protected while states complete their roadless area management plans.
No state has yet to complete their roadless management plan.
“The Bush administration is going back on its pledge to protect these pristine wildlands,” said Matthew Fisher, Wildlands Advocate with the Oregon Natural Resources Council. “And they're ignoring the importance of these areas to our communities and economy.”
Up until last year, roadless lands within America's national forests were protected under the 2001 Roadless Area Conservation Rule. This immensely popular conservation measure safeguarded over 58 million acres of pristine wild areas from logging and development, including two million acres in Oregon. The Bush administration repealed these protections in May of 2005 and substituted a complex process where individual Governors must petition the Forest Service to restore protections for roadless wild forests in their states.
Earlier this month, the US Forest Service announced its intent to conduct logging projects on lands recovering from forest fire in the Siskiyou National Forest. The sales, called 'Mikes Gulch' and 'Blackberry,' will log hundreds of acres of roadless lands formerly protected under the popular 2001 Roadless Rule. Oregon Governor Ted Kulongoski has sent a letter to the US Forest Service office in Portland asking them to reconsider the plan to log in these sensitive areas.
