Roadless area protection is tied to the long-term sustainablity of these huge benefits. Simply put, world class hunting and fishing are still available to the public in the remote areas of our National Forests and use trends show hunting and angling rising at five percent per year nationwide. In some areas like California, hunting use of National Forests is doubling in eight years, while fishing use of Alaska's Tongass National Forest doubled in the last seven years. Further, if America's 50 million hunters and anglers grow in proportion to the population of the U.S. during this century, wild space open to the public will be at an absolute premium. Roads Often Damage Fish and Wildlife Habitats Existing poorly designed and maintained roads are some of the biggest environmental threats to aquatic life and wildlife in our National Forests, promoting soil erosion in fish spawning and rearing areas and destroying the water quality of streams.
Pools are important winter and foraging habitat.
Sediment from roads fills pools and smothers spawning gravels. Thus, roads are harming critical elements of aquatic habitat. A huge and pressing backlog of forest road maintenance needs already exists. The Tongass road situation is but one bad example. There is a clear need for the Resources Committee to request, and for Congress to appropriate, the funds that the Forest Service needs to improve road maintenance and reconstruction, as well as funds needed to eliminate unfixable roads, which are damaging fish and wildlife habitat.