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National Roadless Rule Update - Some good news!
In October 2011, the Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals in Denver, CO ruled against the state of Wyoming and issued a long-awaited, landmark decision upholding the 2001 National Roadless Rule. It had been under attack by logging and resource extraction interests, certain states, and the Bush administration. Subsequently, in December 2011 the State of Wyoming and the Colorado Mining Association challenged the National Roadless Rule again and asked for a full appeals court rehearing.
On February 15th., the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals denied the joint rehearing petition filed by the State of Wyoming and the Colorado Mining Association in the Roadless Rule litigation. This means that the panel decision issued on October 21, 2011, which upheld the Roadless Rule against legal challenges, will stand as the final decision of the 10th Circuit.
Please contact Earthjustice attorney Tim Preso for the color details of the case and of this latest and likely final action in what has been a decade-long saga: 406-586-9699 tpreso@earthjustice.org
Click on the photos at left for an enlarged view. These are just a few of the more than 100 roadless areas of the Pike-San Isabel National Forest that are protected under the Roadless Rule.
Green Fire and Aldo Leopold
Wild Connections and many other groups are exploring Aldo Leopold's legacy. His influence on wilderness, restoration, wildlfe management and the land ethic was far-reaching. He died in 1948, and A Sand County Almanac was completed by his son.
Leopold’s thinking about the land, by which he meant the whole biota, changed greatly over his lifetime. A concise summary of this evolution is found in The River of the Mother of God and Other Easays by Aldo Leopold edited by Flader and Callicott. In the Introduction they note three common themes of The Sand County Almanac as conservation ecology, natural esthetics and environmental ethics. They also list professional and public policy themes of wildlife management, conservation economics, sustainable agriculture and wilderness. The essays are then presented chronologically, and keeping in mind that his thinking would change quite radically helps one get through the 1915 The Varmint Question (kill all predators so there will be more “wildlife” like deer) or Piute Forestry vs. Forest Fire Prevention (suppress all fires so there will be more trees).
In 1935 Leopold bought a farm along the Wisconsin River. In the Green Fire film, his daughter relates that everyone thought there would be a vine-covered cabin, but in fact there was only a chicken coop filled with manure and corn stubble and cockle-burrs as far as you could see. Photos show what years of planting pines and doing restoration can accomplish. Today the farm is a learning center managed by the Aldo Leopold Foundation.
