They are to be used for purposes of this analysis only and cannot be used, with precision or certainty, regarding effects on any specific national forest. The Roads Analysis procedure, prepared by a team of Forest Service scientists and managers, is designed to help National Forest managers bring their road systems into balance with current social, economic, and environmental needs. The science-based Roads Analysis procedure, which has been under development for 12 months, does not change land allocations or make land management decisions, but rather provides critical analytical information for managers to consider as they evaluate and plan the future of their road systems. The draft that now appears on the Forest Service roads web page will be further revised following scientific peer review by professional societies and individual scientists within and outside the Forest Service. Without roads, developing the economic activity that has proved vital to the quality of modern life would have been difficult, and roads remain central to many forest uses today.
Roads provide access for people to study, enjoy, or contemplate natural ecosystems.
And a tradeoff exists between access to roads for recreation and research with the potential effects of that access on biodiversity. Roads have been evaluated from physical, biological, and socioeconomic points of view, often under only one set of criteria in isolation from others. Such an approach is useful for identifying issues, but it can lead to conflict and flawed policy because it may play one set of values against another. A unified approach to analyzing building, maintaining, or decommissioning roads is needed to allocate resources wisely.