FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Wildlife, Recreation, and Conservation Groups File Protests on Roan Plateau Plan

Over a dozen groups today filed protests on the Bureau of Land Management’s proposed plan for Roan Plateau, a popular and ecologically sensitive area of public lands in Colorado’s Garfield County. Representative Diana DeGette filed a separate protest for similar reasons. The Roan Plateau has been the subject of a six-year planning process in which the dominant sentiment expressed has been to keep Roan Plateau as it is - a mecca for hunting, fishing, and backcountry enthusiasts.

Center for Native Ecosystems joined more than a dozen groups yesterday in filing protests on the Bureau of Land Management’s proposed plan for Roan Plateau, a popular and ecologically sensitive area of public lands in Colorado’s Garfield County.  Roan Plateau has been the subject of a six-year planning process in which the dominant sentiment expressed has been to keep Roan Plateau as it is—a Mecca for hunting, fishing, and backcountry enthusiasts.
 
The many organizations include the Colorado Wildlife Federation, National Wildlife Federation, Colorado Trout Unlimited, Colorado Mule Deer Association, Colorado Mountain Club, Colorado Environmental Coalition, The Wilderness Society, Sierra Club, Western Colorado Congress, Wilderness Workshop, Environment Colorado, Natural Resources Defense Council, and Rock the Earth.  Representative Diana DeGette also filed a protest.  The multiple protests raise a common theme: that oil and gas development is being facilitated at the expense of traditional uses and will degrade the area’s many important natural resources.

More specifically the protests assert that the proposed plan:

• Threatens the rare and pure strains of Colorado River cutthroat trout and of rare Colorado wildflowers;
• Degrades the area's important wilderness characteristics;
• Jeopardizes the area’s wildlife;
• Fails to fully disclose impacts from oil and gas drilling or the likely level of development;
• Forces other use to adapt to drilling and would destroy much of the area’s backcountry, displacing guides and outfitters and potentially closing much of the area to hunting.

In addition, the Final Environmental Impact Statement accompanying the proposed plan has failed to properly analyze a full range of alternatives, violates the Bureau of Land Management's multiple use mandate by managing for a single use, and has introduced substantially new directives never before considered by the public.

While comments on the draft management plan overwhelmingly supported protection of Roan Plateau’s important backcountry and urged protection of the Plateau for public uses, the proposed plan would force these uses to adapt to oil and gas development, eventually forcing them off of much of these public lands.

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