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Show Dixie Forest Officials Ask Input on RARE II Proposal Dixie National Forest is seeking public input on the Roadless Area Review and Evaluation (RARE ID of land in the 187-million acre National Forest System "Roadless areas'' in this instance are areas in the National Forest System which don't yet show significant marks of human development roads, buildings, or evidence of tree culture. They need to be reviewed because public decisions should be made soon about how they will be used in the future The Wilderness Act specifies that within wildernesses there will be no roads, no timber harvesting, no structures or installations, and no use of motor boats or landing of aircraft While there are limited exceptions to these prohibitions, particularly situations involving emergencies and safety of visitors, the clear intent is that in wilderness, nature predominates and man is merely a visitor who comes and departs on nature's terms. RARE II was instituted by the National Forest System to speed up resolution of the controversy on a methodical national scale It should insure that highly qualified roadless areas in the National Forest System will be selected and recommended to congress for wilderness It will also allow the selection and allocation of other land for non-wilderness uses, such as recreation facilities, wildlife habitat improvement, timber growing and harvesting, energy development, road-building, and other developmental activities With the help of RARE II many of these decisions as possible will be made by the end of 1978 The help of the public has been asked and received in several public meetings and by letters received, providing th" Forest System with valuable information to assist the agency in establishing criteria for evaluating the inventoried areas All areas in the Forest Service System will fall into one of three categories: Those that should be recommended to congress for wilderness designation; those that should be managed for nonwilderness use and those on which decisions should be deferred to allow additional planning for all options. The last category will include areas on which available data are insufficient, or on which further analysis of tradeoffs must be made to draw should conclusions, or on which a reasonable consensus cannot be reached. |