Improvements To Be Made

I believe that in order to maintain the ecosystem of the Olympic National Forest, road construction in the forests needs to be more restricted, or halted altogether.  Additionally, existing roads need to be maintained and preserved in accordance with the unique characteristics of the streams and rivers they boarder, in order to prevent devastating wash outs. These regions receive massive amounts of precipitation every year (see map and data below), and this rainfall is slowly and continuously eroding the soil. Building heavy roads on top of this unstable soil will expedite this process of erosion and lead to unprecedented amounts of sediment in the rivers and streams. So instead of building more and more forest roads, the Forest Service should maintain the roads that are still intact and convert compromised roads into new trail heads.

Lastly, limiting vehicular access to temperate rain forests will also decrease the amount of fossil fuel emissions released in the forests; which, along with illegal logging, is another one of the many other human impacts on this ecosystem.

Below is a map depicting the average yearly rainfall in Washington, including the Olympic Peninsula where the temperate rain forest is located.

Image courtesy of: 
http://content.lib.washington.edu/cmpweb/resources/map-rainfall.html

Image courtesy of: http://content.lib.washington.edu/cmpweb/resources/map-rainfall.html