2008 COMMENTS WORTH REPEATING III
The Wilderness Drought and How the Green Group Feud Keeps it Alive
By Bill Schneider, 5-01-08
Over the past two years, I’ve been periodically posting selections of my favorite comments from readers of my columns and articles. I plan to continue doing this, but differently. Instead of listing comments chronologically, I’ve edited them into general subject areas. In this case, here are a few insightful comments that came in over the past few months on several articles on the wilderness drought and the green group feud that keeps it alive and if not endless. Enjoy.
Green Group Feud Stifles Efforts to Protect Roadless Lands
“The status quo is very tough to change. The question should be: Can we make the changes necessary to save the Wild Rockies? Or, is it more important to save the Montana Wilderness Association (MWA) or the Montana congressional delegation from the winds of change? To do both may be impossible.” (Steve Kelly)
“I agree that compromise is a key component in moving forward…I do feel however that sometimes coming to a compromise is not enough…If compromise is just moving us back to neutral, then it truly is not a compromise.” (Melanie)
“I see no reason to compromise over watershed health. That’s why I support the Northern Rockies Ecosystem Protection Act (NREPA) and find the refusal of the MWA and other ‘brown’ groups (I prefer ‘brown’ to ‘gray,’ but that’s just negative aesthetics) to be just plain absurd…Let’s get more wilderness, and then declare independence.” (Robert Hoskins)
“More NREPA-like bills would help a great deal. A 4-Corners bill or a New England bill could reinforce and broaden support for the ecosystem approach nationwide. At some point we need to turn a corner and never look back at the failed state-delegation process. Protocol in the House and Senate does more to kill wilderness than ORVs and Big Timber combined. National-interest bills are the wave of the future and the best (perhaps only) way to overcome congressional protocol.” (Steve Kelly)
“There should be not one single square meter of additional wilderness designation until other lands have been allocated similar protections for economic use and those protections have operated satisfactorily for ten or more years. Earth First...let’s take care of the other planets later.” (Dave Skinner)
“The hard work of conservation is grubbing it out with the other interests in an effort to do good for the land and for people, to restore forests, to reduce stream temperatures, to protect wilderness where you can. Anyone can spend all day demanding the moon, never having to account for accomplishing nothing.” (David)
“Practically, we need three things in the West: more wilderness, more big game winter range, and fewer people.” (Robert Hoskins)
“What would Bob Marshall think if he were alive today? I am pretty sure that Lee Metcalf would never let this unending stalemate continue. What is missing in Montana conservation groups is real leadership, people with the ability to unite.” (Problembear)
“All I know is that collaboration and consensus has left conservation in worse shape now than when we knew we had a fight on our hands.” (Robert Hoskins)
“NREPA’s greatest attribute is as a foil to another bill. The internal politics of the MWA are interesting, but it seems to me Montana needs at least one of two things to happen: 1) MT needs the 2nd house seat back. It’s way too easy for Rehberg to block things as the only Rep. from Montana. 2) Tester needs to introduce a wilderness bill. Baucus isn’t going to, but with a D in the White House, Tester has a chance to get a bill through.” (Geoff)
“The only possible practical decision for ‘green’ conservationists (as opposed to collaborationist ‘brown’ conservationists) in the short term is to hold fast for NREPA and other science-based conservation proposals, undercut dangerous compromises, and wait until we get a real Democrat in the White House next year. And by that, I mean Barack Obama.” (Robert Hoskins)
“I support NREPA; it is the right thing to do for conservation and, over the long run, for maximum sustainable economic growth as well.” (Mike)
“The ‘greenwashing’ appears to be working well on our politicos in the State. I am not sure what it will take for them to realize one of the most valuable assets of this state is our Wilderness. County Commissioners bemoan Wilderness, while crying aloud for economic development funding. Yet a look at the greatest land value increases along with economic development in Montana shows they have and continue to happen nearest Wilderness Areas. The Old West will destroy us eventually, may our politicians and their cronies in compromise wake up before it to late.” (Timothy Border)
“Something so simple as standing up for the men and women under your command is fraught with danger to one’s career.” (Robert Hoskins)
“This is a discussion about protecting our last priceless vestige of land that sustains us as a nation, not only in terms of clean water, wildlife and primitive recreation opportunity for our descendents; but even more importantly, wilderness sustains the flame of freedom which flickers still within the hearts of all Americans. The fact that so many people are posting about this just proves this point. Wilderness is freedom. Protect it.” (problembear)
“I agree that NREPA is, well, ALMOST as important as ANILCA. It’s way smaller in size—but maybe that’s what makes it as important. As you say, that’s all that’s left.” (Chris Barns)
Green Group Feud, Afterthoughts
“Environmental groups remind me of the Army, Navy and Marines. They all have a common goal but competing interests. In the process they lose sight of their duty. In this case, stop the in-fighting and get as much protection as possible for our last remaining wildlands; 25 years of failure should be enough evidence that the current method is not working.” (Stoney Burk)
“Open, honest discussion and a free exchange of ideas is a central tenant of democracy. These public lands, including the Beaverhead Deerlodge National Forest, belong equally to all Americans, not just to a few multi-million dollar ‘brown’ groups and a few timber mills.” (Matthew Koehler)
“I get the impression that some folks have never visited a National Forest Wilderness area. I suggest calming down, taking a break. Quit worrying about money and gasoline and wars and politics (for just a little while). Take a walk (or a horseback ride) to a place where the loudest sound you hear is an elk bugling, coyote yipping or water so clear and clean that you can see the bottom of the deepest lake, rushing down a creak bed. Sleep under the stars. Take a deep breath of air so clean that it invigorates your soul; and know, with every fiber of your being, that this will all be here, to hunt, fish or simply enjoy, unchanged for your great grandchildren. That, my friends, is wilderness.” (Frank N.)
“The elephant in the room is our disinterested Montana congressional delegation. When was the last field hearing on wilderness? Even the Rocky Mountain Front was ‘protected’ from oil and gas development with not a single acre of wilderness designated. I’m afraid representatives from Idaho, Wyoming and the eastern parts of Oregon and Washington aren’t any more interested. Delivering ‘pork’ to the colonies is almost more than they can handle. Add fundraising, which takes more time than conducting the public’s business, and these sad souls are just too tuckered out to bother. Shame on all of us for allowing this year after year. In the end, we get the government we deserve.” (Steve Kelly)
Memo to MWA: Return to Our Roots
“The Snyder-Titus letter sheds a lot of light on the brown-green conflict in Montana’s wilderness protection community. Thanks for running it. As yet another former MWA council member disappointed that its selected priorities depart from its charter and purposes, I hope MWA can get itself together enough to run the Snyder-Titus critique in Wild Montana.” (Lance Olson)
Editor’s Note: For a complete list of Comments Worth Repeating, click here.
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perhaps we can start to address saving this country by preserving special places. Meanwhile, maybe there really will be a snowman
taking over the devil's CEO chair in hell.
Its drafted by people from other states who havent set foot in the areas proposed.
I live next to many roadless areas and they are not wilderness worthy areas under guidelines of wilderness act. Period.
Try getting the affected areas together first or ground up approach as said Tester and Bacus(sp).
The nation is more crowded, urbanized and full of electronic gadgets and pastimes (like this MacBook) that people don't get out like they used to. Sprawl and traffic does not help either.
Finally, wilderness opponents got more effective in their campaigns against wilderness legislation. Green group feuding does not help, but it's not the biggest obstacle.
What we now think of as roadless areas grew out of the economic realities of the time; they weren't easily accessible and so loggers left them alone, for there was little profit there. Roadless areas thus became the next generation of potential wilderness areas by default (i.e., through the RARE and RARE II processes), having had the good fortune to come under conservationists' attention at the same time that we began to understand the importance of biodiversity. Biodiversity as a scientific concept provided the scientific underpinning to our intuitions about the importance of roadless areas.
Meanwhile, loggers had reached the end of commercial timber in the easily accessible areas and suddenly found themselves at the end of their financial rope with no additional timber to fuel the mills and industry profit--except the timber in the more difficult to reach and more easily harmed areas. That's when the demands to get into roadless areas began, back in the 80s (at least here). But no dice; here in the Upper Country, for example, the roadless areas were largely characterized by highly erodable volcanic soils and very steep slopes; logging in these areas would clearly have harmed the forest and other forest values. The loggers' demands for more timber under such conditions gave the lie to their claims about scientific management and sustainable yield.
The same situation still exists. There is no practical reason to keep existing roadless areas out of wilderness; they are in watersheds that simply aren't suited for logging under any economic or ecological conditions, and these areas provide much more important values now than timber. For example, as all elk hunters know, elk are where the roads aren't, and the good hunters are where the elk are.
This increased push to log in roadless areas has little to do with economics or even so-called "forest health;" it has everything to do with the forest industry's determination to blame others for its failure to log sustainably in the first place and the desire for revenge against those of us who had the temerity to point it out twenty years ago and place a higher value on the forest instead of the trees.
Wilderness--the forest is more important than the trees. That's all the justification needed to support NREPA and official wilderness designation. It's fortuitous that the science also supports it.
RH