IDAHO ROADLESS AREAS

AND WILDERNESS PROPOSALS

 Idaho Forest, Wildlife and Range Policy Analysis Group

Report No. 10

 by

 James G. MacCracken,

 Jay O'Laughlin,

and

Troy Merrill¹

July 1993

_____________________

¹Dr. MacCracken is Research Scientist, Dr. O'Laughlin is Director, and Mr. Merrill is Research Assistant, Idaho Forest, Wildlife and Range Policy Analysis Group, University of Idaho, Moscow, ID 83843.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

The efforts of the Technical Advisory Committee, listed below, are gratefully acknowledged. Some of these individuals provided guidance on study design and data acquisition; all of them provided technical review of the final draft of the report. Their insights and familiarity with wilderness issues in Idaho greatly improved the quality, accuracy, and completeness of this report.

A special thanks to John C. Hendee for his encouragement to undertake this project, his guidance throughout the effort, and his willingness to share his considerable expertise on wilderness issues by reading several early drafts of this report.

We also thank L. Conroy, T. Donahue, and R. Grove of the U.S. Forest Service for providing current data on wilderness acreage and visitation rates.

Maps were assembled from various sources, including the map collection at the University of Idaho library, and produced with the geographic information system of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Cooperative Fish and Wildlife Research Unit, Gap Analysis Program housed in the College of Forestry, Wildlife and Range Sciences, University of Idaho.

FOREWORD

The Idaho Forest, Wildlife and Range Policy Analysis Group (PAG) was created by the Idaho legislature in 1989 to provide Idaho decision makers with timely and objective data and analyses of pertinent natural resource issues. A standing nine-member advisory committee (see inside cover) suggests issues and priorities for the PAG. Results of each analysis are reviewed by a technical advisory committee selected separately for each inquiry (see the acknowledgements on page i). Findings are made available in a policy analysis publication series. This is the tenth report in the series. The other nine reports are listed in the inside cover.

In addition to the 4 million acres of legally-designated wilderness, there are 11.2 million acres of federal roadless lands in Idaho with wilderness potential. Some of these lands probably should be added to the National Wilderness Preservation System, and some of them should be used for other purposes, including timber harvesting, in this resource-dependent state. The questions are how much additional wilderness should there be, and which lands should be designated? The replies generate heated debates. Wilderness allocation is one of the most difficult resource management issues because viewpoints are based on deeply-held personal values.

We were asked to produce this report as background material for discussions by people who care about the future of Idaho's roadless lands, so that everyone would have the same understanding of the history of previous wilderness proposals and the issues and values that underpin the debate. Our hope is that this report will help citizens and policy makers move toward a decision on what will happen to the roadless areas. The issue is currently on the agenda of Idaho's congressional delegation, and new information breaks almost daily. Thus we selected December 31, 1992, as the cutoff date for this analysis so this report would not cloud discussion of current proposals.

John C. Hendee, Dean
College of Forestry, Wildlife and Range Sciences
University of Idaho

Table of Contents

LIST OF TABLES 

LIST OF FIGURES

LIST OF MAPS

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

One of the most pressing natural resource management issues in Idaho is deciding the future of the 9.4 million acres of roadless areas in Idaho's national forests. The 1.8 million acres of Bureau of Land Management (BLM) Wilderness Study Areas have yet to come to the forefront, but at least half of them have significant wilderness attributes and their disposition may be decided by the current Congress. These 11.2 million acres of unroaded federal lands are significant because of their vastness (one-fifth of the entire state, see the front cover or Maps 3 and 9), their qualities as wilderness, wildlife habitat, and recreation sites, as well as their potential as sources of commodity products for industry.

The last of Idaho's 4 million acres of wilderness was designated in 1980. Several attempts to add more Idaho land to the National Wilderness Preservation System since then have failed, for several reasons. Although livestock grazing, water rights, and recreation opportunities figure prominently in the debate, analysis leads to the conclusion that these issues are less visible when compared to timber harvesting and related wildlife and water quality issues.

People would like to resolve the wilderness allocation issue for a variety of reasons. Some feel very strongly that Idaho has enough land area designated as wilderness, others feel just as strongly that Congress should add all additional areas with significant wilderness characteristics to the Wilderness System to preserve those qualities. Some are counting on roadless areas for timber. Two-thirds of Idaho's timberland base and three-fourths of the timber volume are in the national forests. Through the current ten year planning cycle that will end in the mid-1990s, about twenty-eight percent of the timber to be provided by the national forests was to have come from roadless areas. Others would like to resolve the roadless area issue in favor of protecting public land values of recreation, wildlife habitat, and water quality. One way, but not the only way, to insure that the quality of these lands is protected is to have Congress designate them as statutory wilderness. Only Congress can designate official wilderness areas.

It appears that most Idahoans recognize that some additional wilderness should be designated. The big questions are how much, where, and what happens to the rest of the roadless areas? The fate of non-wilderness roadless lands is the core of the controversy surrounding potential wilderness legislation for Idaho. We do not provide answers to these highly political questions, but instead document alternative viewpoints as reflected in various past proposals in Idaho, and in other states that have dealt with the same issue.

Idaho has a long and rich history of wilderness proposals, actions, and key events. These are summarized in Table 1, and explained in the body of the report with accompanying maps. These events occurred in three phases. Phase one: during the 1920s and '30s the U.S. Forest Service classified certain lands as primitive areas or wilderness areas, with associated administrative limitations. Phase two: with the enactment of the Wilderness Act of 1964, the National Wilderness Preservation System was established, and Congress authorized itself to designate areas as statutory wilderness. Between 1964 and 1980, six areas in Idaho totalling slightly more than 4 million acres were designated, giving Idaho more wilderness than any of the other lower 48 states at that time (see the map on the inside back cover, or Maps 1 and 2). Phase three: beginning in 1980, a strategy of designating wilderness state-by-state, rather than by individual areas, was undertaken by Congress, and now California, Washington, and Alaska have more designated wilderness than Idaho. In Idaho, a variety of proposals and events beginning in 1984 have failed to designate more wilderness areas.

Idahoans, as well as the nation, are divided on how much more land should be preserved as wilderness. Proposals for wilderness designation in Idaho since 1987 include the national forest plan recommen-dations of 1.3 million acres, the McClure-Andrus proposal of 1.5 million acres, and proposals by environmental and wilderness advocacy groups exceeding 5 million acres. As portrayed on the map on the back cover of this report (and in Map 8), analysis of these proposals reveals 732,062 acres in 18 roadless areas common to all of them. These areas of agreement are identified by name and by national forest in Table 5.

A variety of congressional proposals to designate more Idaho wilderness may be expected in the near future. This report provides an historical perspective on why the roadless area issue has persistently defied solution, and what lessons history might provide that would help the situation today. The most prominent stumbling block now seems to be the issue of opening for develop-ment roadless areas not designated as wilderness. Grazing and water rights, although important, appear to be less significant issues.

Wilderness allocation is a national as well as regional issue. The U.S. Forest Service has recently committed to an ecosystem approach for managing federal lands, and ecosystem management policies may significantly increase debate at the national level. The ecosystem management approach presents new challenges, and is a prominent reason why the wilderness allocation issue will persist into the future.

Three alternatives for dealing with Idaho's roadless areas seem apparent. First, rely on the federal land management planning process, essentially a do-nothing alternative. Second, attempt to get Congress to pass an Idaho wilderness bill, which Idaho's political leaders are working toward in July 1993 as we write this report. Third, as a consequence of either doing nothing or failing to get an Idaho bill through Congress, allow the growing national interest in preserving the wilderness characteristics of Idaho's roadless areas to develop a state or regional bill that could pass Congress. Such a situation may or may not take into consideration the full range of Idaho's interests. A regional bill would be unprecedented, but the commitment to ecosystem management of national forests makes this third alternative a realistic possibility.

Which of the three alternatives is best for Idahoans? The federal land management planning processes of the Forest Service and BLM have recommended relatively modest additions of 2.3 million acres to the Wilderness System. The planning processes are designed to manage all lands with public input after analyzing environmental impacts. An Idaho wilderness bill is necessary to designate wilderness, but is difficult to put together and get enacted, as demonstrated by several failed attempts during the last 10 years to get a bill through Congress.

We hope this summary of the history of Idaho's wilderness areas and analysis of current issues regarding roadless areas will be useful in deciding the fate of Idaho's roadless lands, because most interested parties believe it is in the best interests of most Idahoans to do so. However, the wilderness debate in Idaho, and elsewhere, is unlikely to ever be settled once and for all. Legally required planning provisions for public lands, short-term legal compromises, ecosystem management considerations, and the future potential to reclaim developed lands as wilderness insure that the wilderness allocation issue will be revisited many times in the future.

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