Keep The Medicine Bow WILD
With your help, the public can seize a
once-in-a-generation opportunity
to protect the Medicine Bow National
Forest
The 2004 Medicine Bow Forest Plan: An Overview
Key Points
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Where to Write
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Contact Info
The Place
The Medicine Bow National Forest, located in southeastern Wyoming, is a land of sparkling waterways
and awe-inspiring peaks, a region of spectacular natural beauty and diversity of life. This forest is
Savage Run Creek, Medicine Bow NF
Erik Molvar |
home to numerous rare and disappearing animals like the northern goshawk, pine marten, boreal toad, and
mountain lion. It is also a favorite place for hundreds of thousands of people to hike, fish, watch
wildlife, camp, hunt, and otherwise connect with nature every year.
The Problem
For far too long, the Medicine Bow National Forest has been managed almost exclusively to benefit logging companies, at great harm to the forest's wildlands, wildlife, and to the public. In fact, the Medicine Bow is one of the most heavily clearcut National Forests in the entire country. Too much logging on this forest threatens the Medicine Bow's vulnerable animals and threatens to destroy many of its special places.
Crystal |
YOU Can Help Save the Medicine Bow
Right now, the Forest Service is choosing a new management plan for the Medicine Bow National Forest, which provides all people who care about this forest an extremely rare opportunity to protect what makes it special. In this process, the agency is considering a citizens' conservation plan, called Keep the Medicine Bow WILD, among other possible forest plans. If selected, the citizens' plan will protect the Medicine Bow's ancient forests, its deep canyons, its high alpine slopes, and the plants and animals that make these wild places home.
Unfortunately, the Forest Service, especially under the anti-environmental Bush Administration, is unable to appreciate the tremendous worth of wild nature on the Medicine Bow and will not select the citizens' conservation plan without a strong outpouring of popular support. Please take a moment to join this outpouring by writing a short letter asking the agency to adopt the Keep the Medicine Bow WILD plan. Your time, energy, thoughts, and concern-when combined with that of thousands of others-will make a huge difference.
In your letter, please tell the Forest Service to:
- Protect all roadless areas on the forest as wilderness. These wildlands (such as the breathtaking Laramie Peak, the aspen forests of the Sandstone Canyons, and the old-growth forests of Coon Creek) must be protected for today and for future generations.
- Connect forest habitat across the Medicine Bow. This forest is being chopped up into smaller and smaller pieces by far too many clearcuts. Wildlife corridors should be protected and restored throughout the Medicine Bow so all its native animals can roam freely and find the habitat they need to thrive.
- Keep snowmobiles to designated roads. Every year the Medicine Bow is overwhelmed by huge amounts of off-road snowmobiling. The Forest Service should protect non-motorized recreational opportunities, along with the environment, by keeping all snowmobiles to Forest Service designated roads.
- End Clearcut logging. This is the most environmentally harmful type of logging and most of the public finds it entirely unacceptable. It's time to phase out clearcutting on the Medicine Bow.
- Build no more new roads. There are already 3,000 miles of roads on the Medicine Bow, which is more than enough mileage to travel from New York to San Francisco.
Thank you for taking the time to save this amazing forest. Please send your
letter by April 4 to:
Medicine Bow / Routt National Forests
Attn. Draft Forest Plan Revision Comments
2468 Jackson St.
Laramie WY 82070
Or by email to:
R2_mbr_mb_revision@fs.fed.us
Or by fax to:
(307)745-2398
Contact Information
For more information, contact Duane Short at
Biodiversity Conservation Alliance
PO Box 1512,
Laramie, WY 82073
(307) 742-7978,
duane@voiceforthewild.org
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