SREP is joining forces with Aveda, The Allegheny Defense Project, Northcoast Environmental Center, Superior Wilderness Action Network, Global Greengrants Fund, Dogwood Alliance, and Forest Guardians to gain public support for American Heritage Forests' Campaign to save our nation's remaining roadless areas. These wild forests are valuable not only for recreational use, but also as critical habitat for native plant and animal communities. In addition, naturally functioning forest ecosystems are invaluable for their contributions to clean air and water that all life on earth requires. Logging can be very detrimental to native ecosystems, but road-building alone results in habitat destruction, fragmentation, and degradation through increased human accessibility, erosion, pollution problems, and loss of habitat.
Roads disturb animal movement and migration patterns.
These forests should be saved as a legacy for future generations. President Clinton and Vice President Al Gore have recognized the biological importance of these roadless areas. The President has issued a request to the Forest Service to develop a protection policy for these invaluable lands based on ecological science, not political folly. However, there is no moratorium on logging, mining or other activities in these areas. Many of the remaining roadless areas in the Southern Rockies could serve as core habitat areas in a connected system of nature reserves that would protect many of the Southern Rockies native species.