Raw Deal On Rare Ii
RAW DEAL ON RARE II
A final recommendation announced by Secretary of Agriculture Bob Bergland allocates 24 percent of the area studied in the Roadless Area Review and Evaluation (RARE II) to wilderness, 18 percent of the land to further study and 58 percent of the 62 million acres to multiple uses.
Now that the Department of Agriculture has made a decision, the matter goes to Congress which will make the ultimate decision about RARE II lands.
Secretary Bergland's announcement was a middle-of-the-road choice that pleased neither the wilderness supporters or the multiple-use supporters. “All they gave us was rocks and ice.” said a w ilderness group representative when Bergland made the announcement. Rob Rasor. associate director of government relations for the American Motorcyclist Association said. “Frankly it wasn't as bad as we thought it would be, but the real impact of RARE II will have to be assessed at the state level by reviewing those areas designated, their acreage, and how they alter traditional riding areas.”
What areas are affected wasn’t clear immediately. The full 600 page environmental impact statement on the decision wasn't finished when Bergland made his announcement. It is known that 5.6 million acres are in Idaho. 1.9 million acres are in Colorado and 900.000 acres are in California. A total of 15 million acres is recommended for wilderness, 11 million for further study and 36 million for general use.
Whatever happens to the recommended wilderness areas, there will be a continuing battle over the land put into further study. Rasor said, “We have some real concern over the 11 million acres in the further study category. Assistant Secretary of Agriculture Rupert Cutler, who initiated RARE II, made it pretty clear that he expects these to end up as wilderness sooner or later.”
Already the debate has begun in Congress over the amount of land recommended for wilderness, the way in which the study w'as performed, and the characteristics of the land.
As some motorcyclists have suspected, much of the land in the RARE II study wasn’t, in fact, roadless, not even according to the Forest Service which was conducting the study. According to a survey done by the National Outdoor Coalition, as much as 60 percent of the land in RARE II actually contained roads. The NOC obtained the Forest Service Wilderness Attributes Rating System (WARS) forms used by the Forest Service to evaluate land in several areas of California. Of the 40 parcels evaluated, the Forest Service’s own information shows about 60 percent of the parcels to have roads.
The Forest Service rejected a request from the NOC to assemble the WARS documents for all parcels in Washington, D.C. so the NOC could evaluate them.
In a response to the NOC statements. Bergland said some adjustments had been made to eliminate roaded areas, but that “There are reasons for some tolerance for marks of man’s activity for inventory purposes.” Bergland went on to say Congress does not consider unimproved roads and many other minimal evidences of man to be reason enough to exclude many areas from wilderness.”
So the Roadless Area Review and Evaluation did include land with roads. Now it’s up to Congress to decide if the Forest Service and the Department of Agriculture was right.
