UPDATES

Coronado National Forest, Arizona

The Coronado National Forest released its off-road management plan for the Santa Catalina Ranger District on March 11, 2009. The plan leaves more than 30 miles of unauthorized routes on the ground, but fortunately only adds a few miles of additional routes. The Center has again asked the Forest Service to reduce the number of off-road vehicle routes in the Santa Catalina Mountains to protect habitat for lowland leopard frogs and the Mexican spotted owl, northern goshawk, desert tortoise, Gila chub, and lesser long-nosed bat. We’re very concerned that the Forest Service will continue to reward illegal behavior by designating off-road vehicle routes created when riders stray from trails and roads seeking thrills without regard for the environmental damage they’re causing in the Safford, Nogales, Douglas, and Sierra Vista districts. Despite the fact that the Forest can afford to maintain just 9 percent of its current roads, it hasn’t made a commitment to reduce the number of roads in our forests.

View the plan for the Santa Catalinas and maps of the area here. Then take action by reading our action alert and sending a letter to the Forest Service. Even though the official comment deadline has passed, it isn’t too late to send in your comments. Please check back to find out about upcoming meetings for the other districts of the Coronado National Forest.

The Center hosted a workshop on April 9 to educate the public about travel management, the impacts of off-road vehicles, and how to submit effective comments to the Forest Service. The Coronado will be releasing plans on other districts very soon (possibly by mid-November), and it’s important to be informed as these plans move forward. If you’d like to learn how to speak out for you right to quiet recreation and protect habitat for threatened and endangered species, email Cyndi Tuell or call her at (520) 444-6603.

Carson National Forest, New Mexico

The Carson National Forest is home to Wheeler Peak, the highest peak in New Mexico, as well as more than 86,000 acres of wilderness and river otters, lynx, elk, antelopes, black bears, mountain lions, and bighorn sheep. Its 400-plus miles of mountain streams may be at risk unless you get involved in travel-management planning and ask the Forest to protect species habitat and riparian ecosystems. The Carson plan would allow camping and motorized game retrieval on more than 54,000 acres of fragile forest lands and would designate enough roads to drive from Santa Fe, New Mexico to Vancouver, B.C. — even though the Forest can afford to maintain just more than 370 miles of roads each year.  

The Center and a broad coalition of groups in northern New Mexico have asked the Carson to continue working toward a responsible, manageable road system in the Canjilon, El Rito, Jicarilla, and Tres Piedras ranger districts. We’ll continue to monitor how the plans progress in the Questa and Camino Real ranger districts. You can view the forest-wide proposal, transportation analysis report, and current forest plan here.  

Thanks to the comments of more than 3,500 Center supporters, the Carson National Forest is finally allowing full public scrutiny of the environmental impacts of its off-road vehicle plan for the Questa Ranger District. The deadline for telling the Forest it must designate a system of roads that it can afford and that will protect streams, wildlife, and quiet is September 5, so take action now.

Thank you for taking a stand and helping to protect thousands of acres of national forest in northern New Mexico. It’s important to stay involved. Get out into the forest and take pictures of roads that are eroded and polluting streams, and let the Forest Service and the Center know about experiences you’ve had in the forest that were ruined by off-roaders. Contact the Forest and ask to be notified of upcoming meetings and the progress of travel planning: Jack Carpenter, Carson National Forest NEPA planning coordinator, (575) 758-6221, carson_trvl_mgt@fs.fed.us.

Cibola National Forest, New Mexico

The Cibola is developing its travel-management plans by ranger district. The Mountainair Ranger District recently released a comprehensive plan that went a long way toward protecting species habitat, riparian areas, and your right to enjoy a quiet forest. You can read the plan here. This district can afford to maintain just 9 percent of its current roads, and more than a third of its roads are causing damage. Fortunately, the district now plans to reduce its open motorized-route system from more than 470 miles to fewer than 200 — and it’ll need your help and support to carry through. Speak up to protect the Mexican spotted owl, Rocky Mountains big horn sheep, bald eagle, and northern goshawk. You can contact Roxanne Turley, Mountainair travel management project team leader, at the Cibola National Forest supervisor's office at (505) 346-3900 or rturley@fs.fed.us. The deadline to submit comments was May 1, 2009, but you can still send the forest your thoughts, thanks, and comments.

Please stay tuned — we expect the Mount Taylor Ranger District to release its analysis of the impacts of its proposed plan in mid-November. Rest assured that the Center will take a close look at this plan and make sure the public knows whether it goes far enough to protect threatened and endangered species and how you can help.

Gila National Forest, New Mexico

The heavily watered Burros area of the Gila National Forest offers a critical link for wildlife passing from one of New Mexico's sky islands to the next. The Center and the Upper Gila Watershed Alliance have joined forces to monitor travel management in the Gila. The Center asked you to contact the Forest Service and request that it prepare an environmental impact statement, and thanks to your efforts, the Gila has finally agreed to prepare this more detailed document that will better investigate the negative impacts of motorized recreation.

We’ve repeatedly asked the Gila to protect the San Francisco River from off-road vehicles, but unfortunately the Forest’s management has ignored our requests and we again need your help. The Forest Service released its plan for off-road vehicles in early September, and we need you to contact the forest supervisor and ask him to protect the forest that inspired Aldo Leopold and is home to the country’s first designated wilderness area. You can read the proposed plan and take a look at maps here.

We asked you to contact the Forest Service and ask them to protect threatened and endangered species such as the Gila chub, Chiricahua leopard frog, loach minnow, spikedace, and Mexican spotted owl — and you didn’t let us down. More than 15,000 Center members and activists got in touch with the Gila National Forest and demanded that the road down the San Francisco River be removed from the plan, in addition to all roads and off-road corridors that threaten the integrity of wilderness areas. While the comment deadline has passed, it’s never too late to join us in letting the Forest Service know how important the Gila National Forest is to you. If you need help crafting a letter to the Forest Service, please contact Cyndi at ctuell@biologicaldiversity.org.

Santa Fe National Forest, New Mexico

The official comment deadline for the proposal to manage off-road vehicles ended September 2, 2008, but you can still submit comments to the Santa Fe while it develops its environmental impact statement, which is now expected in January 2010. The Santa Fe has taken a good first step toward remedying damage from more than 30 years of the overuse of motorized vehicles in the forest, but more needs to be done, and off-road vehicle advocacy groups have continued to pressure the Forest Service to expand the already excessive and often unauthorized motorized vehicle route system. User-created routes and routes going through Mexican spotted owl and Jemez mountain salamander habitat need to be removed. You can view the plan and the transportation analysis report here. The Forest continues to need your attention and support to ensure a travel-management plan that will protect imperiled species and the peace and quiet people seek when they escape from the city to the forests. We applaud the activism in the Santa Fe area and encourage everyone to continue to speak to the Santa Fe National Forest and other public officials about the destructive nature of unmanaged off-road vehicle use in our forests.

The Center allied itself with four other conservation groups and dozens of individuals in asking the Forest Service to protect the Jemez Mountains from the continued destruction caused by off-road vehicle users riding in closed areas. The New Mexico Environment Department has joined our call to protect this area, which provides clean air and water to the citizens of New Mexico. Please help us yourself by asking the Forest Service to grant our request to protect this area from continued destruction. You can find contact information for the Santa Fe Forest supervisor here.

Kaibab National Forest, Arizona

After an appeal by the Center and allies, the Tusayan Ranger District was told to take another look at an ill-conceived off-road vehicle plan that would allow hunters off-road access to almost the entire forest. In fact, many Arizona hunters report that off-road vehicles are ruining their hunting experience, and it’s a tragedy that in the best elk-hunting grounds in Arizona, the Forest Service planned to allow extensive off-road vehicle habitat degradation. Our appeal of the flawed plan has successfully called on the Forest Service to develop an alternative that prioritizes resource protection, and we’ll continue to work with the agency to make sure that happens.

We still await an environmental assessment from the Williams Ranger District and we’re hopeful that it won’t follow the unwise decisions of the Tusayan District. The proposed action for the Williams Ranger District would open more than 10,000 acres of forest to off-road travel for car camping, including routes close to the Kendrick and Sycamore Wilderness. Car camping would also be permitted next to pronghorn habitat in Garland Prairie and the Wash Tub Priority Grassland Restoration Area. Documents recently released by the Forest indicate that it can afford only a fraction — just 20 percent — of the roads currently in the Forest, yet management is proposing thousands of miles of roads and will reward illegal behavior by designating user-created routes as part of the system. To see maps and transportation analysis visit the Forest’s Web site.

Apache-Sitgreaves National Forest, Arizona

This Forest published its proposed action in February 2008 after a series of contentious public meetings in late 2007. The Forest revised its plan to include additional off-road vehicle routes and areas after off-road vehicle advocates forced their way through public meetings, shouting down the quiet users in the crowd. The Forest plans to let the public review its environmental impact statement in early 2010 and is still taking public comments on its proposed action, so it’s not too late to let managers know that quiet users do care deeply about the forest and want to see a balanced travel plan focused on resource protection, including protection for threatened and endangered species such as the Mexican spotted owl and northern goshawk. The Center and other conservation groups are working with the Forest to help develop alternatives that will offer the most protection for threatened and endangered species and to counter the influence of the motorized groups and local government officials who oppose all restrictions on motorized use in the Forest. You can contact the Forest Supervisor, Chris Knopp, and ask him to select the “action alternative” proposed by the Center and other conservation groups as the “preferred alternative.”   

Tonto National Forest, Arizona

At more than 2.8 million acres, the Tonto National Forest is one of the country’s largest national forests, encompassing the Sonoran Desert as well as mixed conifer and ponderosa pine ecosystems. There are 4,290 “official” roads on the Tonto and countless more that have been created by people driving off-road vehicles in fragile areas, which will show the scars of this abuse for decades to come. The long-awaited plan to finally manage off-road vehicle use and get a handle on a road system for the Tonto — which is as long as a drive to Florida and back from Phoenix — unfortunately does very little to protect natural resources, including habitat for threatened and endangered species such as the Mexican spotted owl, the southwestern willow flycatcher, and the cougar. These species survive in the midst of Arizona’s largest urban area, despite more than 1 million visitors on off-road vehicles each year, and we need the Forest Service to do more to protect this rare gem of the Southwest.

The Tonto will hold a series of meetings, and these are your chance to look at the maps, talk to the Forest Service, and let it know that protecting wildlife habitat, precious rivers and streams, and quiet areas of the forest are more important than creating “tot lots” for youth to run wild on off-road vehicles, as well as more than 2,000 acres of off-road vehicle play areas — “tot lots” for parents. There are too many roads in the current plan, not enough money to manage those roads, and too much encouragement for far too many people to disrespect land in the Tonto National Forest. The Forest Service should not be rewarding lawless off-road vehicle riders by designating user-created roads and opening up areas that have been destroyed by illegal off-road uses.

Please take the time to review the plan, look at the maps, and go to a meeting to speak out for this hard-hit forest. Comments are due December 6, 2009.

NATIONAL FOREST SERVICE INFORMATION

New Mexico
Carson National Forest
Cibola National Forest
Gila National Forest
Lincoln National Forest
Santa Fe National Forest

Arizona
Coconino National Forest
Coronado National Forest
Kaibab National Forest
Tonto National Forest
Prescott National Forest