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A federal plan to halt road-building temporarily in national forests falls short because it exempts much land, especially in the West, environmentalists complained Thursday.
A proposed U.S. Forest Service moratorium covers 35 million acres, but it exempts up to 25 million acres in small forests and other forests where land-management plans have been revised recently, the Wilderness Society and 26 conservation groups said in a report.
The largest exempted area covers 9.5 million acres in Alaska’s Tongass National Forest.
The Forest Service could approve the plan before year-end, but it would be in effect for only up to 18 months while a final road policy is drafted.
