Clinton Plans In Final Phase

President Bill Clinton will be playing the last few cards in his conservation legacy in the next few weeks.

He could designate several more national monuments, including one on the Upper Missouri River in Montana.

The Forest Service expects President Clinton to release his final plan to limit logging, mining and road building on nearly 50 million acres of national forest land before he leaves office in January.

The proposal, which has been scrutinized in public hearings for a year and a half, will identify preferred alternatives for managing certain roadless lands that are not yet protected by other designations, such as wilderness.

Adding to the urgency of the initiative is continued pressure to build roads and log marginal forest stands that might be key areas for fish and wildlife habitat.

Also, the rapid increase in off-road-vehicle use on public lands has mushroomed to the point of straining relations with other public land users and land managers.

Sportsmen appear to be strong supporters of keeping bulldozers out of existing forest roadless areas.

A majority of America’s 50 million hunters and anglers want existing roadless areas in national forests to remain roadless, according to a national survey commissioned by the Theodore Roosevelt Conservation Alliance.

The survey found that 86 percent of anglers and 83 percent of hunters supported efforts to keep the remaining roadless areas of forests free of roads, as long as hunting and fishing and other outdoor recreation were still allowed there.

Clinton’s plan would allow logging and road building on these roadless areas only in the rarest of cases, such as to save endangered species or to prevent wildfires.