REDDING — Mountain property with dramatic views, the headwaters of salmon streams, tall timber and rugged backcountry, even a cave or two -- all could be sold as part of a Bush administration proposal to auction roughly 300,000 acres of national forestland to fund rural schools and roads.
Administration officials have characterized the land, more than a quarter of which is in California, as isolated parcels that don't belong in the 193-million-acre national forest system because they're expensive to manage and aren't vital to wildlife or recreation.
But a closer look at the 85,500 California acres that the U.S. Forest Service listed for possible sale two weeks ago reveals that the tracts aren't all scraggly odds and ends. According to interviews with local forest officials and conservationists, some of the land -- most of which lies in Northern California -- borders scenic river corridors or has been proposed for possible wilderness protection by U.S. Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.). Some has valuable timber. Other acreage provides winter range for deer or habitat for threatened species.
In booming Riverside County, a crucial wildlife corridor identified by federal biologists in Banning could be ruptured by the sale of two large tracts in the San Bernardino National Forest.
Far from being isolated, the parcels in several cases are strung together in blocs of 1,000 acres or more.
Others abut large chunks of national forest or other federal lands.
"This is definitely something every single conservation group is up in arms about. This is very misguided policy," said Monica Bond, a biologist with the Joshua Tree office of the Center for Biological Diversity.
According to regional Forest Service spokesman Matt Mathes, the state's list of parcels was drawn up by the agency's California office and derived from computer data that looked primarily at the size of the tracts and whether they were separated from the main body of the forest -- not whether they played a role in wildlife, recreation or other forest uses.
"We were trying to come up with enough parcels to fund the program," Mathes said.
The office has since pared about 6,000 acres from the California list in response to comments from forest managers and others, bringing the state total down to 79,362.
