Hunters Rights Coalition and US Forest Service Reach Deal On Road Closures
December 29, 2008
Madison – Today the Wisconsin Hunters Right Coalition (HRC) agreed to drop its appeal of the Forest Service’s (USFS) decision to close 53% of Wisconsin’s Forest Roads in return for significant concessions from the service.
The HRC had appealed the USFS decision on November 6th and entered into negotiations on December 2nd. At issue were the 2,292 miles of so-called “undesignated roads” which were in effect being closed by the USFS decision.
“These road closures would have been devastating for sportsmen and women who use our National Forests,” said Kendal Durham, President of the Wisconsin Bear Hunters. After negotiations it is clear that the roads are not “closed” but remain “undesignated”.
“This is a very important point as once a road is labeled as “closed”, it become much harder for a Federal Agency to open it, whereas an “undesignated” road is in a more indeterminate status,” said Attorney Bill Horn, who represented the HRC and other groups in this matter.
USFS has agreed to hold off on enforcement action on these undesignated roads until such roads are analyzed in detail. This will involve another round of public input, a process known as adaptive management. The HRC agreement makes this clear by referencing the applicable Federal Statute.
“We were very uncomfortable that under the first proposal our members would still be subject to fines and having their favorite roads arbitrarily closed for effectively a whole season, until they could petition for the road to be reopened,” said Greg Kazmierski, representative of the Wisconsin Chapters of Safari Club International.
Previous drafts of an agreement had called for written warning to any vehicle operator on an undesignated road, and had included a disclaimer that enforcement personnel were not bound by the agreement. The HRC agreement contains no such disclaimer and also contains no language that “users are expected to abide by the map” which effectively closed those 2,292 miles of roads.
“Instead Wisconsin hunters will be able to continue to use the roads until a designation has been concluded,” said Rob Sexton of US Sportsmen’s Alliance. “This is a big win for Wisconsin’s hunting community.”
Hunters, who specifically violate by entering roads closed by berms or gates, will be subject to ticketing.
Dean Hamilton, President of the State Chapter of NWTF added, “We would like to thank the USFS and Forest Supervisor Jeanne Higgins for sitting down with us to address our issues. It’s not a perfect solution, but most of our concerns have been resolved.