The Forest Plan May Not Close Roads Today. That Does Not Mean Access Is Safe.

One of the most common things people are hearing about the Blue Mountains Forest Plan Revision is this: "The forest plan does not do travel management."

That may be technically true in the narrowest sense. The forest plan may not close a named road on the day it is signed. It may not put a gate on a trail next week. It may not decide every route in the Malheur, Umatilla, and Wallowa-Whitman National Forests all at once.

But that does not mean the plan has no effect on access.

That is the part the public cannot afford to miss.

A forest plan sets the framework future decisions will follow. It tells the agency what conditions it is trying to create, what uses it will support, what uses it will limit, and what direction future projects are supposed to follow. If that framework points toward fewer routes, more restrictions, or more reasons to limit motorized use, then access is very much part of this plan.

The plan may not close the road today, but it can help write the reason that road gets closed later.

Why This Matters

The agency can say "this is not travel management" and still write a plan that shapes future travel management.

Both things can be true at the same time.

That is why Forest Access For All is not reassured by a narrow answer that says access is not being decided right now. We are looking at whether the plan supports access, or whether it creates a framework where access is easier to restrict later.

Access is not just about weekend recreation. It is how people reach the forest for hunting, camping, gathering, firewood, grazing, timber work, forest restoration, emergency response, family traditions, and tribal subsistence uses. It is also about the kind of access people actually need to use these places. Telling someone they can still walk in does not help much if they are elderly, disabled, hauling firewood, moving livestock, retrieving game, maintaining range improvements, or trying to get equipment to a work site. It is how rural communities stay tied to the national forests around them.

If a plan has strong direction for wildlife, scenery, water, recreation settings, and special designations, then it can also have direction that supports access and productive use.

That is not asking too much.

Too often, "balance" means the public keeps hearing that all uses matter, while the actual plan language keeps adding more reasons to restrict access, reduce management, and limit traditional use. That is not balance. That is one side of the scale getting heavier while the other side is told to be grateful it is still on the scale.

What The Preliminary Plan Appears To Miss

Based on our review of the preliminary draft plan and the issues we have been tracking, the concern is not only that access language is hard to find. The bigger concern is that the plan appears to look at motorized access mainly through the lens of impacts and minimizing those impacts, not for what access contributes to forest management, forest work, emergency response, tribal and non-tribal local use, and actual use of these landscapes.

Instead, access-related impacts can show up through other sections: transportation, recreation settings, wildlife habitat, riparian areas, roadless areas, scenery, wilderness recommendations, timber, grazing, minerals, and other plan direction.

That creates a problem for the public.

If access is scattered across the plan, people may not see the full picture. If the plan does not clearly support continued access, including the current motorized routes people depend on, future decisions can lean on the restrictive pieces while ignoring how people actually use and manage these forests. And if the Forest Service later moves into travel management, route designation, or cross-country travel closures, the revised forest plan may already have set the sideboards for those decisions.

That is why the fix cannot be just, "Do not close this road."

The fix has to be stronger than that.

The Fix

The fix is not more regulation on motorized access, grazing, timber, or traditional forest use.

The fix is clear, access-supporting plan direction that says these uses belong on the forest and should not be managed down by broad plan language. Actual resource damage should be handled with existing rules, permits, enforcement tools, closures, and project-level processes already on the books.

Access should not be treated only as something to restrict, reduce, or study later. The plan should recognize access as necessary for public use, local economies, forest work, livestock management, timber and restoration work, fire response, tribal subsistence uses, recreation, and family traditions.

A stronger plan would include direction that:

1. recognize motorized access as a valid and important public use;

2. support the current road and trail systems that keep people connected to the forest;

3. protect access needed for grazing, timber, firewood, hunting, gathering, camping, forest work, and emergency response;

4. recognize that local communities, non-tribal and tribal alike, also depend on access and healthy, managed forests;

5. stop piece-by-piece and project-by-project reductions in access;

6. prioritize reopening or restoring access where past closures have gone too far; and

7. align the plan with recent federal direction to increase public access, including motorized access, to public lands.

   
   

That is the point people need to carry into the comment period.

We are not asking the Forest Service to regulate traditional use to death. We are asking for a plan that says, plainly, that access and productive use belong in these forests, and that existing laws, permits, closures, enforcement tools, and project-level processes should be used to deal with actual damage.

What Forest Access For All Will Be Looking For

When the DEIS is released, Forest Access For All will be reviewing it closely. We will be looking for places where the plan talks about access directly, and places where access is affected indirectly through other resource sections.

We do not expect every person to read hundreds of pages of government documents alone. That is part of why we are doing this work.

What we need from the public is local knowledge.

Start thinking about the roads, trails, grazing areas, firewood areas, campsites, hunting areas, gathering areas, trailheads, and access points that matter to you. Think about how you use them, who uses them, and what would happen if access became harder, more controlled, or less certain.

When the DEIS comes out, we will help connect those real places and real concerns to the plan language so people can make stronger comments.

What You Can Do Now

Do not let anyone convince you that access is safe just because the plan does not close a specific road today, or because someone says access is not part of this plan.

Ask a better question:

Does the plan clearly support continued access, including motorized access, or does it leave access to be limited later?

That is the question the Forest Service needs to answer.

And when the comment period opens, the public should ask for a clear fix: put access-supporting and use-supporting direction back into the plan. Support motorized access. Support grazing. Support timber and active management. Support tribal subsistence uses. Support recreation and traditional local uses. Support the people who live with these forests, work in them, and depend on them.

The DEIS is not out yet. That gives us time to get ready.

Start your list. Follow Forest Access For All. Share this with someone who has been told the plan does not affect access.

Because the forest plan may not close roads today.

But it can still shape whether those roads stay open tomorrow.