How does an award-winning, collaborative, 10-year restoration project for Utah’s state tree – the aspen – suddenly get dissed as a project that would be more successful if only more roads could be punched into Monroe Mountain? It’s a head-scratcher.
In late January, Kathleen Clarke and her Utah Public Land Policy Coordinating Office team were meeting with a nonprofit public policy organization when Monroe Mountain was brought up by state officials as an example of why the state needs to petition the U.S. Department of Agriculture to exempt Utah’s national forests from our nation’s Roadless Area Conservation Rule.