2) Fact: The proposal respects all private property rights. One hundred percent of the lands being considered for protection and restoration are already federally managed public lands. No restrictions would be placed on the legal use of or access to any private in-holdings or adjacent private lands.

3) Fact: All existing water rights and road right-of-ways would be honored. There is absolutely no effort to impact any valid existing rights.

4) Fact: Only an act of Congress can create Wilderness areas. There are more flexible designations than Wilderness, such as a national monument or national recreation area, which allow a variety of multiple uses depending on the management plan for the designated area.

5) Fact: All major roadways would remain open in the Siskiyou Crest Area. Motorized access would remain available except in cases where unneeded, remote and decaying logging roads are decommissioned due to stream sedimentation and a lack of budget to maintain them.

6) Fact: A protected wildlands landscape often helps adjacent economies. Across the American West, counties with protected areas have stronger and more diversified economies than neighboring counties. Local businesses benefit as more people are drawn to take advantage of the outstanding outdoor opportunities. Communities and chambers of commerce near many other protected areas in the West have embraced them as an engine of long-term local economic growth.

7) Fact: Protecting the Siskiyou Crest could create jobs. The public lands surrounding the Siskiyou Crest have not been an important source of timber or other large-scale resource extraction for many years. Forest restoration, small diameter thinning, fire hazard reduction/prescribed fire projects and aquatic restoration would create jobs in the woods.

8) Fact: Fire suppression will continue, regardless of any management changes on the Siskiyou Crest. Any designation would not limit the ability of firefighters to effectively manage fire in the area. The Siskiyou Crest needs a cohesive fire management plan for the region that protects communities and forest resources while preparing for the safe return of fire to this fire-dependent landscape. Important access roads would remain open and fire risk would be actively reduced.

9) Fact: Fuels reduction activities would be encouraged in the Wildland Urban Interface (WUI). Supporters of protecting and restoring the Siskiyou Crest have worked for many years to promote community developed fuels reduction projects in the WUI. Every effort would be made to ensure that ecologically sound fuel reduction activities in the WUI were enhanced rather than prohibited.

10) Fact: Grazing over-utilization and trespass is a management problem on the Siskiyou Crest affecting water and rare plants. Cows from grazing allotments on the Siskiyou Crest have trespassed outside their allotment boundaries causing overutilization. Wet meadows and stream-sides are often where cattle congregate on public lands.

11) Fact: There is a need for coordinated thinning and restoration on the Crest and the Siskiyou Crest proposal encourages restoration within its boundaries. Tens of thousands of acres within the proposed monument have been heavily impacted by past logging and fire suppression and are full of dense, disease and fire prone fiber plantations. These areas should be assessed for restoration forestry projects that would improve forest health, restore habitat functionality and create local jobs. This would not be a ‘hands-off’ preserve: a restoration focus would encourage decades-worth of work in the woods.

12) Fact: The federal government is not working in secret to pull off a major ‘land grab’ in our backyard. These are federal public lands, owned by all Americans and our shared heritage. Long time local residents have been working for decades to achieve meaningful protections for the Siskiyou Crest. If protections are gained, the area will consist entirely of federal land, as it does now.

13) Fact: The Siskiyou Crest Campaign does not seek to drain the Applegate Reservoir. Removing the Applegate Dam is not a part of the Siskiyou Crest proposal. Use of this popular recreation area would not be adversely affected.

14) Fact: A proposal for a Siskiyou Crest National Monument is a starting place for discussion. KS Wild put out an initial proposal that was the organization’s vision of how to better protect and restore this geographic region. The boundaries on the current maps, as well as our recommended designation, are merely a starting place for a discussion. KS Wild welcomes reasoned discussion of areas that should be included or excluded from the proposal.

15) Fact: KS Wild wants to work with all interested parties to protect and restore the Siskiyou Crest. We live here. We deeply care about our communities and hope to work together to create a better future for our families.

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