Conservation through partnership

Conservation

By Bryan Martin, CMC Assistant Conservation Director

Colorado boasts world-class recreation opportunities on some of our nations’ most spectacular public land. At the federal level, there are ten National Forests and fourteen Bureau of Land Management Resource Areas totaling nearly twenty million acres. At the state level, there are over forty state parks, the state forest, and countless acres of state land. Now, consider all the possible actions the state and federal government could take on those public lands that could affect our quiet recreation experience, the wild and scenic qualities of our public lands, and our ability to access the backcountry. Tracking them and responding so that the interests of the CMC are represented is a daunting task.

The Colorado Mountain Club’s Conservation Department serves as the clearinghouse for a lot of this information, but we are not alone. We could not do the job we do if it were not for the dedicated volunteers we rely on week in and week out. Across the state, volunteers assist us in our efforts to monitor proposed actions affecting public lands locally and statewide. Moreover, the department would not be where it is today without the strong organizational partnerships we have created at the local, state, and national level. Our partnership in the Southern Rockies Conservation Alliance (SRCA) is a great example.

SRCA is a coalition of over twenty-five conservation and recreation organizations working to protect and preserve public lands in Colorado and southern Wyoming. SRCA’s mission is to develop and implement coordinated, comprehensive, and effective campaigns for within the Southern Rockies Eco-region to protect wilderness-quality lands, conserve and restore biodiversity, ensure quiet recreation opportunities, promote healthy forest ecosystems, and restore natural fire patterns.

The coalition is made up of grassroots, state-wide, and national non-profit organizations such as the Backcountry Snowsports Alliance, the Quiet Use Coalition, the Wilderness Society, the San Juan Citizens Alliance, and the Colorado Environmental Coalition. The unique geographic focus of each organization allows the coalition to take a comprehensive look at how proposed actions locally could affect state and national policy or actions and how national policies could potentially impact local or regional public lands.

SRCA is organized in issue-area committees. Issue area committees include Recreation, Wilderness, Roadless Areas, Biodiversity, and Forest Health. The committees allow SRCA organizations to work on issues most closely aligned with their missions and their staffs’ expertise. For example, the Colorado Mountain Club serves on the Recreation, Wilderness, and Roadless Area committees. We do not participate in every committee due to the direction provided by our mission, our board of directors, and the club’s strategic plan. Nevertheless, the Conservation Department keeps abreast of the work of all the SRCA committees in order to be as well informed as possible when deciding our strategies, priorities, and activities related to our mission.

The use of partnerships is just one example of how the CMC Conservation Department allocates time and resources as efficiently as possible to fulfill our state-wide priorities. Beyond our non-profit partnerships, we are working to formalize our relationships with the federal land management agencies in the state through memoranda of understanding (MOUs) that will specifically define how the CMC will work with the agencies. To date, we have finalized an MOU with the Bureau of Land Management and are currently working on one with the Forest Service. We hope to expand our MOU program with Colorado State Parks and the National Park Service in the future. P

it’s likely that some of the top destinations that come to mind are scenic and quiet. Probably these places are either within Colorado’s 4.4 million acres of roadless national forests or our 3.3 million acres of designated Wilderness Areas. In addition to outstanding quiet backcountry hiking, camping, angling, and hunting, these areas are critical habitat for wildlife and contain the watersheds that ensure our clean drinking water.

Roadless Areas are especially critical as precursors to future Wilderness Areas, but their protection is by no means certain.

While the Wilderness Act and other legislation protect Wilderness Areas from development, Roadless Areas are protected by the 2001 Roadless Area Conservation Rule (RACR). This rule was the product of the most extensive federal rulemaking in history, with more than six hundred public hearings nationally and more than 1.6 million favorable comments. However, under the provisions of a 2005 state-by-state procedure for roadless management, roadless protections seem on their way out the door. The Forest Service’s released its Colorado-specific Draft Roadless Rule on July 25, 2008 for a ninety-day public comment period. The proposed plan creates extensive “exemptions” to protection of some of Colorado’s most sensitive backcountry wild lands, leaving them with less protection than any other state in the lower-48.

Help us ensure balanced management for Colorado’s National Forests by writing public comments on the proposed rule. Comments are due by October 23, 2008. Your comments can be submitted to COcomments@ fsroadless.org. For more information on how to get involved please contact Anya Byers at (303) 996-2754 or by email at anyabyers@cmc.org.