3 COHVCO RMEC TPA Comment Final 1

June 1, 2009 Comments and Recommendations Gunnison Basin Federal Lands Travel Management DEIS COHVCO – TPA - RMEC 1. The DEIS Summary (page 1) sets up the planning bias that reflects itself throughout the document. The sixth paragraph states: “The agencies have the difficult task of balancing the need for access to the federal lands for a wide variety of uses with our mandate to manage for long-term sustainability of the federal lands and natural resources on those lands”. While we appreciate and recognize the “difficult task” of this planning effort, both the BL M and U.S. Forest Service have a “mandate” to provide for multiple use and sustained yield of all resources…including outdoor recreation …that best meets the need of American people (Multiple-Use Sustained Yield Act, 16 U.S.C. § 528, and National Forest Management Act, 16 U.S.C. § 1604(e)). These are “judicious use” concepts that include the principle of sustained yield of all of the several products and services obtained from renewable surface resources. By positioning “access needs for a variety of uses” on one end of a planning teeter-totter, against “the mandate for long-term sustainability of natural resources” on the other end, suggests an agency, predetermined, point of balance outside the mandate to also provide for sustainable services for the American people. The term “balance” in the Travel Rule and in this DEIS ...