WILD BILL
A Natural Alliance Foiled
By Bill Schneider, 12-15-05
Over the past decade of the “Wilderness drought� I covered in the last two columns, one aspect of the debate over how to protect our roadless land demands more attention. Mountain bikers, people who by their very nature should be supporting Wilderness designation, are opposing it.
Before I go any further into this hot button issue, I should say I do indeed own a mountain bike, and I ride it almost every day. But my mountain bike has street tires on it, and in the fifteen years I’ve owned it, it has never been on a single-track trail. I use it strictly for commuting. I say this because I don’t want my hiking buddies thinking I’m bias toward mountain bikers when they read this column. I do confess to a bias, though, but not for hikers or mountain bikers—for Wilderness.
It seems out of character, if not upsetting, that mountain bikers oppose Wilderness designation. Every mountain biker I know (and I know lots of them) also hikes, has a “green attitude� and wants roadless land protected. Yet, in the next breath they oppose the best tool we have to truly protect our last roadless land. Very few mountain bikers want to share trails with ATVs, but the International Mountain Bike Association (IMBA) routinely shares the podium with lobbyists representing the motorized recreation industry in opposing Wilderness proposals in California, Oregon, Idaho and several other states. Why?
The answer to that seems easy. The Forest Service banned mountain biking in Wilderness even though the Wilderness Act of 1964 did not disallow mountain bikers (see companion article). The modern mountain bike had not even been invented in 1964, but with its subjective regulations, the FS prohibited mountain biking in Wilderness. Why?
That question is even easier to answer. The FS hates Wilderness. The agency did not support the Wilderness Act in the first place, and since it passed, it has used a myriad of bureaucratic strategies to oppose every Wilderness designation—and has effectively scuttled many of them. You’ll never get a FS spokesperson to admit this in public, but the agency used the timeworn divide-and-conquer strategy to create anti-Wilderness constituencies, and I must say this worked beautifully on mountain bikers.
Witness what IMBA senior policy analyst Gary Sprung recently told Congress when testifying on an Oregon Wilderness bill. “IMBA generally supports the intent of the Lewis and Clark Mount Hood Wilderness Act because our members value protecting pristine lands from development. On the one hand, they want to protect the areas they ride, but on the other, they don't want to lose access to the trails they have ridden for almost two decades. Consequently, IMBA believes that the proposed Mount Hood Pedaler's Demonstration Experiment Area [translate: little ‘w’ wilderness alternative to Wilderness] is a positive step forward in public land policy regarding Wilderness as it protects the land while allowing bicycling.�
I view IMBA opposition to Wilderness as narrow and shortsighted, but clearly, it isn’t going away. Regrettably, both hikers and mountain bikers are deeply entrenched in their position, so we have an impasse, which I’m sure delights the FS and ATV advocacy groups and other Wilderness opponents. IMBA has played right into their hands.
I know hikers who don’t like sharing trails with mountain bikers, but this attitude also seems narrow and shortsighted. Would these hikers, I must ask, prefer sharing the trails with four-wheelers? Eventually, that’s what they’ll get in many areas if something doesn’t change.
Even though I don’t ride my mountain bike on trails, I live three blocks from a roadless area including Mount Helena City Park and nearby de facto, wilderness, which has about twenty-five miles of trails very heavily used by both hikers and mountain bikers. And guess what, it’s not a problem! For many years, current regulations have accommodated both groups of trail users with minimal if any environmental damage, safety problems or social conflict. Respect and courtesy has always ruled on Mount Helena.
Another spot jointly used by mountain bikers and hikers is the Rattlesnake National Recreation Area on the outskirts of Missoula. I’ve hiked there several times and encountered mountain bikers on every trip, but again, no problem! Much less problem, I might add, than the conflict between hikers and people using stock animals. Much less environmental damage, too.
So, that’s the problem, but what’s the solution? My first choice would be for the FS to stop over-interpreting the Wilderness Act and recognize that the forefathers of the Act did not intend to ban mountain bikes, but I’m not going to hold my breath until that happens. And if it doesn’t, we still have two major solutions—a new mindset by IMBA that values “the greater good� by ending opposition to Wilderness or a new mindset by hiking groups that compromises with IMBA by supporting a little “w� designation disallowing motorized recreation but allowing muscle-powered transportation.
Perhaps IMBA could decide to be satisfied with the many thousands of miles of trails that would still be available to mountain bikers even if every proposed Wilderness bill passed. But I have seen little indication this might happen.
Or perhaps hiking and pro-Wilderness organizations could accept little “w� designations like IMBA’s proposed alternative called National Conservation Areas. Likewise, I see no signs that pro-Wilderness groups plan to support little “w� wilderness. As time marches on and our base of wildlands continues to diminish, perhaps hiking groups will re-consider. Little “w� sure seems better than the alternative—more decades of continued Wilderness drought and the gradual taming of our wildlands.
The punch line is: mountain bikers and hikers are a natural alliance that has been foiled. The two groups—which oddly enough are often the same people—should form a symbiotic relationship and work together to protect the last roadless lands. Somebody needs to blink, soon, because if they don’t, I know what's going to happen.
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By and large the Forest Service is made up of well-meaning, underpaid professionals who are trying to do a near-impossible job. That is, manage public lands for a myriad of conflicting "uses", with users constantly badgering (or sueing) to get their particular "use" moved to the top of the list, while Washington continues to starve the agency for the resources it needs to carry out its near-impossible mission. And despite all that, most Forest Service rank-and-file still believe passionately in their mission to conserve these lands for the public, in perpetuity, including as wilderness.
Bill, some of the most passionate wilderness advocates I know are Forest Service employees! Get to know some! And while we're at it, let's stop beating up on them and begin offering them the support they need to do their job well.
We can and should debate the details of forest management. But impeaching the ideals of those who are best-suited to accomplish the job, with no real evidence to support your accusations, will only continue to take us backwards. Lighten up!
Actually, you might be surprised to hear that I agree with you. I know many Forest Service employees who support Wilderness as much as anybody in the Wilderness Society. Regrettably, however, these people do not make the decisions on Wilderness proposals. I suppose it's difficult to separate the agency from its employees, but there is a difference. The agency itself has done everything possible to prevent additions to the Wilderness Preservation System. Recently, in Montana, for example, the FS recommended less land for Wilderness in three National Forests than conservative senator Conrad Burns.
As for mountain bikes, I don't relish the idea of suddenly meeting a mountain bike on a narrow trail while I'm leading a pack string of horses. Horses are notoriously intolerant of sudden suprises, and that's what mountain bikes tend to mean on the trail. On the other hand, horses don't like ATVs either. There probably is some room to maneuver on this issue.
Of course, this is all a bit of a shell game among Federal agencies. Maybe, just maybe, it would lead to a renewed push to increase the supply of wilderness lands. Because, if we encourage a new recreation activity we can expect to see demand for wilderness opportunities increase. In a time of decreasing resources, do we want to stir the pot by trying to squeeze more people into the same amount of room?
Long gone are the timber beasts that ran the agency. Now there are scientists that demand protection of a variety of resources, some most people haven't even heard of.
The problem with ONLY using the Wilderness Act to manage land is similar to only having a hammer in your tool box. It is essential to building the frame, but lacks the finesse or precision when doing the wiring, or plumbing, not to mention some of the finish work. So what's wrong with a primitive non-motorized area? That's what many of the Wilderness areas were before the 1964 law was in place. I would like to see a spectrum of land allocations describing recreation use. If everytime we want to "save" an area from ourselves we put it into Wilderness, eventually all we will have are over developed areas like ski resorts and mega-campgrounds on one end and areas that we can only walk in (Wilderness areas) with little in between for bikers, primitive car campers, or anyone else that doesn't fit into a neat category.
The fact of the matter is that the management of the Forest Service still has a pro-development bias. The Bush administration has simply made it worse. I know too many former Forest Service employees who've left the service because their commitment to conservation didn't get them anywhere once they reached a certain level.
The Shoshone NF is already over 50% designated Wilderness with a capital W. Further restrictions and designations just cause more user conflicts as more and more people are crowded onto fewer and fewer remaining multiple use acres.
I would also point out that if you read the Wilderness Act, you'll see that Congress declared Wilderness to be fully compatible with the definition of "multiple use" in the Multiple Use Sustained Yield Act (MUSYA) of 1960. I would also say that the definition of the term as used by "multiple use" groups is not compatible with MUSYA. When "multiple use" groups use the term, they really mean dominant commercial or industrial uses, which tend to be destructive--one more reason for continued protection for roadless areas.
Responding to McGregor, I disagree that it's just a Washington or Bush administration problem. The disinclination to support wilderness clearly exists in the Regions as well as in many Forest headquarters, some more than others, that is true. Also, that lack of enthusiasm for wilderness also existed in the Clinton administration's Forest Service at all levels, certainly in Wyoming.
In the current Shoshone planning process, conservationists can't get any commitment from the Forest regarding wilderness status for the Dunoir Special Management Unit in the Wind River District or the High Lakes Wilderness Study Area in the Clarks Fork District, for example. One reason for that is that the Forest has appointed a highly non-representative "Government Cooperators Work Group" that is dominated by county commissions and conservation districts pushing the highly skewed version of "multiple use" mentioned above. It's been clear that so far the planning process is being driven by "multiple use" interests, not the public interest in true, legally defined multiple use.
Finally, the conflicts will occur whether or not Congress designates additional wilderness areas. Conflict is not a reason to not work for additional wilderness.
Randall O'Toole's "Reforming the Forest Service" is a free-market screed that reflects the Cato Institute, and less of his original criticism of federally subsidized timber harvests.
On a purely pragmatic basis, A Vision for the U.S. Forest Service: Goals for the Next Century, by Resources for the Future, examines the inherent conflicts between conservation and multiple use.
Just a little light reading,...
Had Bill Schneider bothered to talk with me, or to read IMBA's work on the issue more thoroughly, he might have come to the realization that IMBA and I have tried very hard for many years to support the preservation of undeveloped public lands. We have strongly and repeatedly supported the Roadless Initiative, and we support the Congressional designation of all kinds of preservation initiatives, including some Wilderness. We supported the pending Virginia wilderness bill, with nine new Wilderness areas, after environmentalists worked with us to compromise.
But our belief that some places deserve designations other than Wilderness -- e.g. national park, national conservation area, national monument, etc. -- is construed by zealots as opposition to preservation. That's a shame, as there are many ways to protect public lands. Diversity builds strength.
One error in Schneider's analysis was the thought that mountain bikers might somehow accept "the many thousands of miles of trails that would still be available to mountain bikers even if every proposed Wilderness bill passed." The trouble with that is that most wilderness activists want all roadless areas to be designated Wilderness. Some want Wilderness down to 1000-acre blocks. This would close most of the singletrack on our public lands to bicycling. There would not be thousands of miles remaining. Bicyclists would be limited to roads, which is exactly what our opponents want.
As the former president of a very successful environmental group, High Country Citizens' Alliance, wherein we obtained designation of two new, hotly contested Wilderness areas, I am dismayed by the environmental movement's narrow-minded attitude toward bicycling. It threatens a very important goal, the protection of our last undesignated wildlands. But as long as the movement insists on baning bikes from another 50 to 100 million acres of public lands, we will have conflict.
--Gary Sprung
Schneider also incorrectly assumes that because he doesn't mind bikes on his hiking trails, that others don't (and shouldn't) either. It's just not true. Many (perhaps most?) hikers do not like hurrying to get out of the way of fast-moving bikes, or breathing their clouds of dust after they pass, or missing the chance to view wildlife because the bikers have scared them off.
Yes, bikers deserve a place to ride. Lots of places. But they should NOT be allowed in designated wilderness. Not now, not ever.
Jim Carlson