Excellent news for Southern California.

[tabatha]

Agreement Protects 1 Million Acres of Roadless Areas in SoCal Forests

San Francisco — The Los Padres National Forest will benefit from an agreement announced today between conservationists, the state of California, off-road vehicle users and the U.S. Forest Service to protect more than 600,000 acres of roadless areas in Santa Barbara, Ventura, San Luis Obispo, and Kern counties from development. The agreement is awaiting approval by federal district court Judge Marilyn Hall Patel.

“Today’s agreement brings us one step closer towards securing the permanent protection of our region’s wild places,” said Jeff Kuyper, executive director of Los Padres ForestWatch, a Santa Barbara-based conservation organization that participated in the agreement. “It promotes healthy wildlife populations, pristine open spaces, clean water, and outdoor recreation opportunities for our local communities, all of which are facing increasing pressures from urbanization and development.”

The deal concludes a federal lawsuit brought by ForestWatch and other conservation groups challenging Forest Service management plans for four Southern California national forests. The challenged plans opened up 900,000 roadless acres for possible road building or other development across the four forests. In 2009 a federal district court agreed with the groups, ruling that the plans violated the National Environmental Policy Act. After that ruling was issued, the parties agreed to negotiate a settlement.

http://lpfw.org/news/1012forestplanagreement.htm

(Nice to read after the Tester abomination)

[NNadir]

1. Well, I wish they could pass a law in California against shooting Jeep ads among the redwoods.

Car ads make me sick.

[tabatha]

2. I agree with you on that.

[joshcryer]

3. Deep forest should be protected for hikers and survivalists, not four wheelers and campers.

Really, these people come in, tear shit up, and leave behind their garbage (which by itself has a huge fine, but no one cares). People rip out bits of the forest, too. Large rocks can fetch a mighty penny on the market, especially nice weathered ones that corporations like using for decorations in their flowerbeds. (I am personally acquainted with a guy who secretly does this to the tune of thousands of dollars a rock, I can't rat him out though because I can't prove it, but he's bragged about it.)