National Forest Blueprint Tries to Balance Interests

A long-awaited U.S. Forest Service plan released Friday preserves an additional 87,000 acres of parkland in Southern California’s four national forests from development, but doesn’t eliminate the possibility of a toll road, hydroelectric plant and continued oil drilling on other parklands.

The new blueprint for managing some of the most intensely used public forests in the nation has been shaped over four years through lobbying efforts by environmentalists, off-road enthusiasts and others.

By law, the federal government must update its management plan for the forests every 10 to 15 years.

Forest Service officials said their plan balances conservation needs with the growing recreational demands of the 8 million people who annually visit the 3.5 million acres of the Angeles, Cleveland, San Bernardino and Los Padres national forests.

The number of visitors is expected to increase by 20% in 15 years, putting added pressure on the parks’ resources.

“Everyone was not going to get what they wanted,” said Matt Mathes, spokesman for the U.S. Forest Service.

For instance, the plan opens new sections of backcountry to all-terrain vehicles, but the 740,000 acres of parkland zoned for off-road enthusiasts in the plan represents a sharp reduction from the original proposal -- a reflection of public outcry.

Still, off-road advocates said Forest Service officials recognized the growing demand for alternative forms of recreation.

“Certainly we’d welcome the agency looking at increasing the amount of off-highway vehicles recreation on federal lands,” said Don Amador, California representative of the Blue Ribbon Coalition, an off-road group.

Under the new guidelines, about 1.2 million acres of national forest land in Southern California will be protected wilderness, where only hikers and people on horseback can venture. The additional amount of preserved land is nearly twice the size of Catalina Island.

But environmentalists said they were disappointed that more of the forest was not designated as wilderness areas -- especially property in the Cleveland National Forest in Orange County, where a toll road and hydroelectric plant have been proposed, and in Los Padres National Forest in Ventura and Santa Barbara counties, where oil drilling is a possibility under a plan approved in July.

“These forests are the last big natural open spaces left ... the [Forest Service] is forgoing the strongest protection available to protect that land,” said Bill Corcoran, senior regional representative for the Sierra Club. “They just missed that opportunity.”

The forest plan merely recognizes that Southern California’s needs and desires for its public lands could change over time, Forest Service spokesman Mathes said.

“These plans have to be forward-looking,” he said. “It would be unprofessional, and frankly irresponsible, to close the door on something that humans may desperately need five to 10 years from now.”

Though the new guidelines are regarded as the official game plan on forest management for the next two decades, individual development projects would still have to go through several layers of federal approval.

It takes an act of Congress to permanently protect wilderness areas, and only portions of existing wilderness areas have this permanent protection.

The clash between environmentalists and development interests over the forest management plan is inevitable, said Sean Hecht, executive director of the Environmental Law Center at UCLA.

“I don’t think there’s a single right answer, it’s a question of values: what is it that we want to do with our public lands and how those choices are made,” Hecht said.

Throughout much of the 20th century, Hecht said, the Forest Service had been largely focused on harvesting resources like timber and minerals from its national parks space.

In the last 20 to 30 years, he said, public sentiment shifted toward preservation and environmentalism.

“Fifty years ago, I don’t think anybody would have anticipated there’d be so much wilderness,” he said.

But during the Bush administration, Hecht said that trend has been reversed and once again federal parklands are being viewed, in part, for their harvestable resources.

In July, the federal government decided to open 52,000 acres of the Los Padres National Forest to oil and gas leasing.

Forest Service officials acknowledged that public opinion was overwhelmingly against any more energy leasing in the 1.76-million-acre national forest, which is habitat for dozens of endangered California condors.

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Management plan

The U.S. Forest Service released its final plan for long-term management of Southern California’s four national forests, which cover 3.5 million acres. The plan recommends designating almost 87,000 acres of new wilderness in the forests, as well as allowing potential development. For example, in Cleveland National Forest, one proposal would dam and flood a recreation area for a hydroelectric plant.

Proposed additions to wilderness areas

*--* National Forest Acres Los Padres 35,821 San Bernardino 26,428 Angeles 13,175 Cleveland 11,372 Total 86,796

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How national forest land is used

*--* Los San Cleve- Type of zone Padres Bern. Angeles land Designated wilderness 48.3% 19.6% 12.4% 17.9% Recommended wilderness 2.0 4.0 2.0 2.7 Non-motorized public access/recreation 9.6 36.0 37.5 38.3 Administrative roads/public 18.0 5.6 8.0 12.0 access/rec. Motorized public access/recreation 18.6 25.5 24.3 18.3 Critical habitat 0.1 0.3 0.6 0.5 Developed buffer 3.4 8.9 12.9 10.2 Experimental forest 0 0 2.3 0

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NOTE: Figures for land use totals may not equal 100% because of rounding

* All alternative routes/sites for each project are shown. Only one of each would be built.

Source: U.S. Forest Service; Elsinore Valley Municipal Water District