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We Have a Plan

Two huge issues dominate, running parallel to the plan revision: grizzlies and lynx

By Dave Skinner

The Flathead National Forest (FNF) has released its proposed new forest plan. This is a big deal, and I’d suggest you take a look at what’s happening yourself.

For good or bad, this proposal is the average person’s “best” chance to sound off for sanity. I recommend you grab the CD from the supervisor’s office, or go to the FNF website: http://www.fs.usda.gov/flathead/ for a download.

From there, it’s one click from the bottom of the home page to Paperwork Paradise. I got the CD, which contains 499 pages of dense reading, plus 27 pages of Appendix C, mostly maps. You owe it to yourself to at least look through Appendix C to look at the “big picture” on what will, and won’t, happen on the Flathead for the next 20 years.

Two huge issues dominate, running parallel to the plan revision: grizzlies and lynx. Again, the maps tell the sordid tale. There’s a “Northern Continental Divide Ecosystem Grizzly Bear Amendment” that will fundamentally constrain implementation of any proposed forest plan – comment deadline May 5, same as the plan proposal. Lynx critical habitat covers everything over 4,500 feet elevation. I have the feeling if proposed actions don’t make more bunnies (hares) for lynx to eat, they won’t happen.

As for the plan itself, I like the simplification of the Management Area (MA for short) classification system. The 1986 plan had endless numbers and sub-categories, created when the Forest Service could afford to be complicated. In the new proposal, the MA’s run a scale. At one end is MA 1a, designated Wilderness, the most “natural.” At the other end is MA 7, Focused Recreation Area, the most “artificial.”

Wilderness: On top of 1.074 million acres of Wilderness, the 2.3-million-acre FNF is proposing to recommend another 188,000 acres. Given there’s another 148,000 acres of non-motorized – well, I can’t support new wilderness unless designation is conditional on an enforceable halt to mindless litigation in the 800,000 or so of FNF that is theoretically multiple-use. There needs to be real “give” with the get, legal protection for “land of many uses” just as permanent, predictable and durable as wilderness.

Regardless, it’s flat-out psycho to turn the Jewel Basin hiking area into big-W wilderness. Front-country wilderness gets trampled flat, but the larger issue is human-waste management. Let’s keep the power-tool option open, please.

Timber: Harvests are now around 16 million feet a year, way too little. In the next plan, from 735,000 acres of “suitable” general forest, FNF proposes to sell a yearly maximum of 34.3 million board feet of “projected wood,” but only 28 million would be actual “timber” – the rest is firewood and other junk. Why not more, say at least 50 million feet a year as part of the 300 million that supposedly could come from Region One forests in Montana? The FNF claims these numbers are based on “fiscal capacity” – but let’s face it, timber sales would be cheap to prepare were it not for the legal mess Congress made.

Recreation: There’s 33,500 acres of good news for overnight campers who use “hard” or developed recreation sites, especially in Southforkistan/Hungry Horse. But for those of us who like to get out and explore – you know, those “dispersed” of us who partake of “modern” recreation involving motors and wheels – the news is lousy.

Closed roads will stay closed, with almost all of FNF’s 2,200 miles of trails (the fun stuff for me) taboo. There’s a few dinky blobs (3 percent total) of “semi-primitive motorized” where trails open to wheels exist, the microscopic “rural” Slippery Bill play area on Blacktail above Lakeside, but that’s all. Comparing the vast seas of non-motorized “semi-primitive” and wilderness (72 percent) to what is open to motorized users is pretty depressing.

Thing is, this new plan proposal might get worse, especially if the Forest Service hears only from the usual hired guns. To its credit, FNF staff is trying to make it easy for regular people (that means you) to weigh in.

Trust me, I’ll be weighing in. If you wish to comment, you can email the Flathead National Forest at [email protected].