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SOURCE: USDA Forest Service, Pacific Southwest Region, September 23, 2005
New Forest Service Plans Provide Recreation and Protect National
Forests
VALLEJO, Calif., Sept. 23, 2005 The Forest Service announced new land management
plans today to protect the natural character of four southern California national forests
and provide a wide range of recreation opportunities over the next 10-15 years. Pacific
Southwest Regional Forester Bernie Weingardt called the plans a balanced, strategic
blueprint for responding to the increasing demand for recreation and other uses of the
national forests while protecting forest ecosystems and resources, especially threatened
and endangered species.
The Forest Plans will guide management of 3.5 million acres on the Angeles, Cleveland, Los
Padres and San Bernardino National Forests (NFs) surrounding southern California's major
urban populations. The new plans give top priority to protecting nearby urban and rural
communities from the threat of catastrophic wildfires and set the stage for the Forest
Service to work closely with local communities to reduce hazardous fuels in the
wildland urban interface. Motorized administrative access to certain
backcountry areas will be allowed for reducing hazardous fuels and fighting wildfires in
valuable watersheds and wildlife habitat. The plans incorporate numerous measures to
protect watersheds, plants, wildlife, and their habitats during all management activities.
To protect the roadless areas and still accommodate the growing public demand for
motorized access to the backcountry, the plans protect the bulk of the forests'
inventoried roadless areas. The new plans identify approximately ¼ of the inventoried
roadless areas where public motorized recreation will be permitted, but only on a limited
number of designated roads and trails. Most of this acreage already has some form of
motorized recreation use, generally on user-created trails. The remaining ¾ of roadless
acreage will be managed for non-motorized recreation, administrative access and for
protection of roadless character.
In line with national and statewide Forest Service policies, the new plans set a course to
address non-system user-created road and trails over time either through
decommissioning or adding routes to the system where appropriate.
Some recreation uses will be limited to certain areas. Mountain bicycles, for example,
will be allowed on system roads and trails except in designated wilderness areas and other
prohibited locations; they will no longer be allowed to travel cross country. Similarly,
recreational target shooting will be allowed only in designated target shooting areas. The
public will be invited to help identify suitable areas for these activities.
The Forest Service will make a preliminary administrative recommendation to Congress to
add 87,000 acres, mostly adjacent to the existing 1.1 million acres of wilderness. These
are areas without roads or other signs of heavy human use. The Forest Service will also
recommend that three Los Padres NF rivers be added to the National Wild and Scenic River
System. An additional 240 miles of rivers will be managed to retain their Wild and Scenic
River eligibility.
The Forest Plans have been in development for the past four years. Draft plans were
released for public review and feedback in 2004. The Forest Service made adjustments to
the earlier draft plans based on nearly 11,000 public comments. These plans are
living documents, said Weingardt. We'll adjust them periodically based on new
science and what we learn from field monitoring. We encourage people to help with the
required monitoring, evaluating results and offering suggestions on appropriate
adjustments.
Each forest will host several open houses in October to help people learn more about the
new plans. The meeting schedule, the plans and associated materials can be viewed now the
world wide web or at southern California public libraries by the end of September. The
plans are available on compact disk (CD) from southern California Forest Service offices.
[webmaster's note, the open houses for the Angeles National Forest will be held as
follows:
Huntington Park: October 13, 6:00-8:00pm,
Family Center-Oldtimers Foundation, 3355 E. Gage Avenue
Rosemead: October 17, 6:00-8:00pm,
Garvey Center, 8838 E. Valley Boulevard
Santa Clarita: October 18, 6:00-8:00pm,
Santa Clarita Activities Center, 20880 Centre Pointe Parkway
Wrightwood: October 19, 6:00-8:00pm,
Wrightwood Community Center, 1275 Highway 2
Claremont: October 20, 6:00-8:00pm,
Alexander Hughes Community Center, 1700 Danbury Road
Los Angeles: October 22, 9:00-11:00am,
Glassell Park, 3650 Verdugo Road
Los Angeles: October 22, 2:00-4:00pm,
Watts Community Center, 10950 S. Central Avenue
West Covina: October 24, 6:00-8:00pm,
West Covina Senior Center, 2501 E. Cortez Street
Fullerton: November 2, 6:00-8:00pm,
Community Senior Multi-Service Center, 340 W. Commonwealth]
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