Letter: Stand up for our forests and our wildlife

As I walked up Berry Creek Road this morning as I have done mostly every day for the past 30 years, I can’t imagine the destruction the paving of this road will do. I can’t imagine the impact to our already fragile wildlife and the social and environmental damage it will do.

This decision by our forest supervisor will be the end of the US Forest Service as we know it today. This decision, if passed, will set a precedent for future inholder owners of land both foreign and domestic to pave not roads but highways through the forest. I don’t believe that President Jimmy Carter ever imagined when he passed the Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act that it could lead to 36 ft wide highways with huge retaining walls zig-zagging our US Forest Service land, therefore destroying everything the US Forest Service has stood for since 1905. The animals from the very smallest to the largest will suffer from the construction of this road for what — so that another development will go in where nobody really lives but just uses their houses a few times a year. 

The Berry Creek area is very important to our wildlife, our community and those of us who call this place home, and the thousands of people who use it every year for what the US Forest Service put land aside for. The mission of the forest service is “to sustain the health, diversity, and productivity of the nation’s forests and grasslands to meet the needs of the present and future generations.” Its motto is “Caring for the land and serving people.” If this road gets paved, it will no longer be there for present or future generations to enjoy. It will be gone forever.

I don’t see how giving permission to these developers to pave this road is any of the above — I only see it as the destruction of a beautiful area.

I also don’t believe that these owners have any intention of ever living there. I believe they want the road so they can sell off the land, make a profit and move on. I think they are trying to deceive the county, and the US Forest Service.

For all of you who call Eagle County home and use Berry Creek Road, stand up for the wildlife who have no voice and help preserve our lands as it was intended.

Please do not support the paving of Berry Creek. It will all be for nothing, only the developer will profit from it, and the wildlife and all of us will lose.

“Conservation is the foresighted utilization, preservation. And/or renewal of forest waters, lands and minerals, for the greatest good of the greatest number for the longest time.” — Gifford Pinchot,  first chief of US Forest Service  

The paving of this road is not a greater good for the greatest number — it is only a greater good for a few.

Jeanette Edmonson

Edwards