Guest opinion: We can be both pro-logging and pro-Roadless Rule

As a young man I worked as a logger and a sawmill hand, and I still appreciate the wood-products industry.

I've also spent years as a wilderness advocate and a member of the Kootenai Forest Stakeholders Collaborative — a group that includes loggers, miners, snowmobilers, hunters, anglers and conservationists. After working through it together, we came down in opposition to rescinding the Roadless Rule. 

When a group that diverse reaches agreement, people ought to pay attention.

The Roadless Rule is common sense. Most of these areas are roadless for a reason: their timber value is low and the cost of punching in roads and maintaining them is high. The honest thing is to leave them as they are. What the current administration proposes — stripping protections from most of our roadless country and opening it to motorized use and corporate development — is the exact opposite of what most Montanans want.

I'd urge voters to watch what candidates do, not what they say. Everybody's for public lands at election time; the mailers all say so. Look at the actual record — did they oppose cuts to federal agencies and will they defend the Roadless Rule? 

— Doug Ferrell, Trout Creek