This Land, Your Land

A directive released last Thursday by the U.S. Forest Service allows Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack to make final decisions about roads in National Forests, but does not mean they will not be built, says the Rapid City (S.D.) Journal.

The Journal says officials of the Forest Service's Rocky Mountain Regional office disputed the Associated Press' characterization of the ruling as a reinstatement of a moratorium on road building in forests. "Vilsack's directive did not mention any moratorium, according to Terry McCann, media officer with the Rocky Mountain Region office in Denver," the newspaper says, "'The moratorium language is incorrect,' McCann said in a phone interview Thursday. 'It is not a moratorium.'"