2005 Travel Management Rule Under Review - Why It Matters!

Good morning, and apologies for our lack in posting—it’s been a long few days.

There’s potentially big news coming out of Region 1 of the U.S. Forest Service: reports indicate that all Travel Management Plans have been put on hold, and the 2005 Travel Management Rule itself is now under internal agency review. If confirmed, this could represent a major turning point—and possibly the first real step toward restoring long-lost public access in places like the Blue Mountains of Eastern Oregon.

To understand the significance of this development, it’s worth breaking down what the 2005 Travel Management Rule actually does:

Each national forest is required to develop its own Travel Management Plan, governed by three subparts:

• Subpart A designates the routes necessary for administrative use by the agency. These roads are needed for land management, but the public may be prohibited from using them—essentially creating a separate system for the agency.

  
  

• Subpart B is where most of the damage occurs. It designates which roads and trails are officially open to public motorized access—and everything else is closed by default. It also prohibits cross-country travel. So if you drive your ATV off the designated routes to retrieve game during hunting season, you’re breaking the law. If you pull slightly off a road to cut firewood—because not all downed wood is conveniently roadside—you’re breaking the law. Even accessing a fishing spot you've used for years, if it’s along a non-designated road, becomes a violation if reached by motor vehicle.

  
  

• Subpart C applies the same restrictive principles to snowmobile and over-the-snow travel. The snowmobile community is often misled into supporting Subparts A and B under the belief that they are not the intended target, only to find themselves restricted later under Subpart C.

  
  

The sad truth is, the 2005 Travel Management Rule provides the public with no real benefit, only hypotheticals and moral grandstanding from the preservationist what work within, and outside the agency to rewild the west. It is a framework of closure, not of access—and it has decimated traditional use patterns across the West. It slows emergency response, it creates tinder boxes for wildfire, it cuts local residents from needed natural resources, and it severs cultural and traditional uses for our residents throughout the West.

Compounding the issue is the 2012 Planning Rule, which replaced the public appeals process with a limited "objection" system. This change has made it harder for the public to challenge agency decisions, further entrenching top-down policies that often sideline the needs of rural and forest-dependent communities.

If the US Forest Service is truly reevaluating this failed policy, then now is the time to pressure other regions—like Region 6, which oversees the Blue Mountains—to follow suit. A formal review of the 2005 Travel Management Rule is long overdue, and hopefully it will be rescinded. Restoring motorized access to our forests must be a priority for communities that depend on those lands for hunting, firewood, recreation, and tradition.

Two of our leaders discussing the issues in 2018 to Congress - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aLJiYq_ufZw