The draft revised forest plan is a massive step backward from the 1987 plans. The Nez Perce and Clearwater National Forests were administratively combined about a decade ago so the separate forest plans in 1987 were combined in the new revision process.

In almost every way, the new plan is worse than in 1987. There is no accountability and little chance of enforcing any provisions in these plans. Below is a summary of the overall plan and its problems. At the top and bottom of this page are links to raise your voice.

Wilderness:

The wilderness recommendation is 263,000 acres, a measly 17% of the roughly 1.5 million acres of roadless country in both forests. (not all of the qualifying areas were even studied). The most important roadless area for wildlife, the 250,000 acre plus Weitas Creek (including Cayuse Creek), is not proposed for wilderness.

Other important areas that are entirely excluded are:

• Selway-Bitterroot Wilderness additions around Elk Summit (previously recommended by the Forest Service),
• South Lochsa Face
• Gedney Creek
• Rapid River (an addition to Hells Canyon Wilderness)
• Pot Mountain, a critical area for mountain goats, among other species
• Fish and Hungery Creeks, some of the best steelhead habitat in the region
• Cove-Mallard (which would be additions to the Frank Church-River of No Return Wilderness)
• Upper North Fork
• Gospel-Hump Wilderness additions
• Moose Mountain (currently protected as a non-motorized backcountry area)

Kelly Creek/Great Burn is eviscerated, the state-line trail is excluded, effectively cutting this bi-state gem in half.

Meadow Creek (an addition to the Selway-Bitterroot Wilderness) is the only new place to be recommended, however the boundary halves the roadless area and fails to protect most of the Meadow Creek watershed.

Only the Mallard-Larkins has anything resembling a good boundary, but it omits the important Elizabeth Lakes country. You can read more about the diverse unprotected wildlands of the Clearwater here.

Because of a lawsuit settlement agreement in 1993 against the 1987 Clearwater National Forest Plan, roughly 537,000 acres of wildlands (double what the agency currently recommends) are to be managed as Recommended Wilderness until the 1987 plan is revised. The Forest Service purposely ignores this fact in order to mislead the public about how much land is currently administered as Recommended Wilderness. 

Old-growth:

There are few measurable and enforceable standards proposed in the new plan. This is unlike the two 1987 plans which had quantifiable, measurable, and relatively enforceable standards.

For example, standards in the 1987 Nez Perce Forest Plan to protect old growth were the basis for our recent successful lawsuit victory on the Hungry Ridge Timber Sale, litigated by Advocates for the West. More specifically, the two 1987 plans have numerical standards to protect old growth, 10% forest-wide and 5% for each smaller watershed. These areas are currently off-limits to logging.

The new draft plan eliminates those standards, proposes no protection for old growth in the most abundant forest types, and allows logging down to a bare minimum in old growth for the remaining forest types.

Watersheds and Aquatic:

One of the major problems of the new proposed plan is the weakening of protection for aquatic habitat. First, stream buffers are reduced by 50% on a few watersheds and 67% on the rest. There are even exceptions in the inner buffers next to the streams. Current standards that measure sediment are eliminated in favor of vague guidelines. This will harm salmon, steelhead, Pacific lamprey, bull trout, and cutthroat trout.

Wildlife:

Unlike the current plans, there are no road density standards and motorized trail standards to protect elk habitat. These standards also protect grizzly, wolverine, lynx, fisher, and mountain goat habitat. There are no hard and fast protection standard for grizzlies, which are just beginning to recover in the area. The scant wilderness recommendation does not protect enough grizzly, mountain goat, wolverine, lynx, fisher, or marten habitat.

Logging:

The new plan would increase logging nearly 6 times over the average in the 2000. This massive increase is portrayed as restoration rather than the damaging kind of activity it really is. Logging is conflated with restoration in the new plan. The Forests Service fails to recognize science that shows the activities on the national forests that produce the most greenhouse gases are logging operations. See the next page for the recent trend in timber sales on the Nez Perce and Clearwater National Forests and what the plan would propose.