Dear Guardian,
We’re excited to announce that a new Forest Service plan
regulating winter motorized recreation reigns in rampant snowmobile use that
threatens iconic winter wildlife such as lynx, wolverines, and grizzlies. Snowmobiles
also wreak havoc on those of us who enjoy the quiet and solitude of a beautiful
winter landscape.
Our sustained pressure, including your comment emails, achieved
a huge victory when the Forest Service released its final over-snow vehicle
management rule last week. Once implemented in a few months, the rule sets the
stage to explicitly close all areas to snowmobiles unless specifically
designated open. In the past, it has been the opposite: generally, unless the
Forest Service took specific measures to close an area to winter motorized
recreation, it was considered open to any and all uses.
This translates to 80 million acres of national forests
in the west that could be closed to snowmobiles after each forest adopts the
rule. That would add to the 35 million acres already protected from snowmobile
use—most of that in wilderness, where no mechanized uses are allowed.
The rule still has its loopholes. One is that the areas
designated for snowmobile use can be huge: hundreds of thousands of acres. Another
is that old Forest Service decisions on snowmobile use can get grandfathered
into the rule. We’ll be watching closely to ensure these loopholes aren’t
abused.
Getting this rule in place is a big achievement for us,
but now the work really begins, as each national forest with snow recreation
must implement the rule. It will take several years for every national forest
across the west to implement the rule, and our Rewilding Campaign team will be
right there to make sure they do it right!
For the Wild,
Bryan Bird
Wild Place Program Director
WildEarth Guardians
bbird@wildearthguardians.org
