The Obama Administration is developing a nation-wide forest-planning rule to replace toothless Bush Administration regulations that were struck down by federal courts.  Add your voice to ensure the new rule provides strong protections for wildlife, habitat, ecosystems, and watersheds throughout your National Forests by attending one of the following roundtable meetings in our region, for which registration is requested here:

• Lakewood, Colorado, on April 12,
  
• Cheyenne, Wyoming, on April 14, and
  
• Rapid City, South Dakota, on April 21.
  

Informational meetings will also be held in Wyoming, for which registration is unnecessary:

• Laramie, Wyoming, April 13, 2010
  
• Sheridan, Wyoming April 15, 2010
  
• Cody, Wyoming, April 16, 2010
  

Go here for more information on meeting times and locations in the Rocky Mountain Region.

Other regions will host meetings as well.  Find out about the
The Intermountain Region here, and the Northern Region here.

The Black Hills National Forest, one of the most heavily-roaded national forests in the nation, has long suffered from habitat fragmentation, soil erosion, and other damage to lands and wildlife associated with road-building and motorized use.  Hundreds of miles of unauthorized trails have been blazed through the forest, which have devastating effects on the landscape.  But last week, the Forest Service created an official travel system that limits motorized use to designated roads and trails and significantly reducing disturbance to wildlife, while still allowing for an enormous amount of recreational access.  Unfortunately, thousands of miles of roads and motorized trails have been left open in the plan, which will continue to take a heavy toll on wildlife and habitats; more work is needed to restore a healthy forest in the future.  Highlights (and lowlights) of the new plan include:

• Road miles open to ORVs will decrease from 3,740 to 3,157, but the number of miles of trails open to their use will increase from 36 to 707.
  
• Cross-country motorized travel, once allowed on 864,000 forest acres, will be prohibited except in two 5-acre parcels and within 300 feet of designated roads for the purposes of elk retrieval and dispersed camping (which covers 294,800 acres of the Forest). 
  
• Severely-destructive activities such as mud-bogging would be strictly prohibited under the plan, and the unauthorized creation of new ORV and dirt-bike trails would be stopped, at least in theory. 

Forest Supervisor Craig Bobzien noted that the new vehicle-use map "will be the principal tool for public education and enforcement" of the plan, but as most hikers and ORV users know, without real enforcement, a paper map will mean very little.
 
While a good first step, this new plan goes nowhere near far enough to solve forest-fragmentation problems that plague the Black Hills.  BCA staff are considering opportunities to build on this plan to protect this unique landscape for years to come.

This month there are two separate competitions which could build BCA's ability to protect wildlife and wild places.  On your mark, get set, GO!

• $5,000 GOODSEARCH GIVEAWAY - APRIL 6-9, 2010 ONLY

GoodSearch will donate $1 for every toolbar that is downloaded between April 6th at 9 a.m. EST and April 9th at 9 a.m. EST up to $5,000.  During this time period, please download the toolbar by following this link.  The new BCA toolbar is free to download, and allows you to raise money for our cause every time you search or shop online.  Once added to Internet Explorer or Firefox, each time you shop at more than 1,300 stores (from Amazon to Zazzle), a percentage of your purchase will automatically be donated to protect Wyoming's wild places - at no cost to you.  (You may even save money with the coupons and deals provided by the toolbar.)  The toolbar also has a search box, and each time you search the Internet, about a penny is donated to BCA. 

On April 10, 2010, thanks to a settlement with BCA, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is required to finally issue a decision about whether to offer Endangered Species Act protection to the rare Wyoming pocket gopher.  About 4,500 person-hours were dedicated to pocket gopher surveys in 2009, but trapping efforts resulted in a total of only 20 Wyoming pocket gopher captures.  Three oil and gas projects are slated to bulldoze the majority of the gopher's known habitat, as well as prime hunting habitat in the Atlantic Rim. If best available science prevails, the gopher, Wyoming's only endemic mammal, will be offered protection as a Threatened or Endangered species under the Act.  BCA membership support made it possible for staff to write the petition and provide the science that may ultimately protect the gopher, and with it, the Atlantic Rim.