LEWISTON, Idaho (AP) -- Idaho's management plan for more than 9 million acres of federal roadless areas has been approved by a national committee.

The Roadless Area Conservation National Advisory Committee on Thursday recommended that U.S. Department of Agriculture Secretary Mike Johanns accept the plan submitted by Idaho Gov. Jim Risch.

The plan Risch put forward last month limits development of 3.1 million acres even more than protections in a 2001 Clinton administration rule. The plan would allow temporary road-building on another 5.5 million acres, only to the extent that it had already been allowed by Clinton officials to boost forest health.

Another 500,000 acres would be opened to logging and road building.

Environmentalists had been concerned about Risch's plan fearing that national forests would be opened up to logging and mining. But a letter put out by the national committee spelled out the Idaho plan in detail and put them more at ease, said Jonathan Oppenheimer of the Idaho Conservation League.

"I think this letter from the Roadless Area Conservation National Advisory Committee provides that level of clarification in black and white that this is what they heard the governor say and this is the way they recommend the secretary of agriculture move forward," he said.

The committee made some recommendations about clarifying parts of the plan. Jim Caswell, director of the Idaho Office of Species Conservation, said the state can work with that.

"There is nothing in there that is a huge concern," he told The Lewiston Tribune.