WILD BILL
No More Wilderness, Confirmed?
By Bill Schneider, 12-08-05
In last week’s column, No More Wilderness Forever, I talked about the growing dilemma facing Wilderness advocates. Conservative, mostly republican, anti-Wilderness politicians dominate in western states and have effectively prevented any pure Wilderness bill from passing for twenty years or more—and will probably prevent any from passing for a long time. This leaves green groups with three options: continue to wait for a change in political climate, accept less-than-pure, little “w� wilderness, or pursue the so-called “packaging� alternative
Tired of waiting, the Idaho Conservation League has decided to try the latter option, which they call the “republican way.� However, other groups consider the “right� way, the wrong way. Many conservation groups oppose the IDG’s Boulder-White Clouds Wilderness designation as currently packaged in the Central Idaho Economic Development and Recreation Act.
�My organization and 35 others (including 13 in Idaho) have come out strongly against the (Mike) Simpson (R-ID) bill for central Idaho because it does indeed advance a Republican agenda for public lands,� writes Janine Blaeloch of the Western Lands Project in a comment on last week’s column. “The proposal includes privatization—through outright giveaway—of about 6,000 (not 2,000) acres of public land. It prohibits the federal reservation of water rights within the newly designated wilderness. It allows, in that nominal wilderness, activities that are totally inconsistent with the letter and spirit of the Wilderness Act, further eroding the ideal and intent of Wilderness now and into the future. It creates a 500,000-plus-acre motorhead's paradise, with a no-net-loss of motorized trails policy that includes 200,000 acres of the Sawtooth National Recreation Area.�
If you want more reasons to oppose the “right� way, go to the Western Lands Project website where you can find a long report covering the shortcomings of the Idaho bill and other similar proposals referred to as “Quid Pro Quo Wilderness, A New Threat to Public Lands.�
�The long-term implication of these trade-offs is their entrenchment in all future public land legislation,� Blaeloch writes. “In the past five years more than 250,000 acres of public land have been jettisoned through omnibus privatization/development/wilderness bills like this one.�
She also points out that this trend has picked up speed lately and has been embraced by House Resources Committee Chair Richard Pombo (R-CA) who recently gained passage of a budget provision that allows the wholesale sell-off of millions of public acres. “I imagine the Idaho Conservation League views that proposal with the same distaste we do—but it's hard to imagine a worse time for conservationists to go along with privatizing public lands.�
The International Mountain Bike Association has also encouraged its members to oppose the Simpson bill because it could close 85 miles of trails to cyclists. (More on mountain bikers and wilderness in next week’s column.)
Robert Hoskins of the Dubois Wildlife Association also sent in a comment.
“One of the provisions of that (Wyoming Wilderness) Act was, in exchange for a favorable vote of the Wyoming Congressional Delegation, to require any future wilderness proposals for Wyoming to have the sanction of the Wyoming Congressional Delegation. And gaining that sanction will have its costs.�
Hoskins has a different view of the problem, something Wilderness advocates probably don’t want to hear. “The main reason we have made little progress for Wilderness over the last 20 years is that the various mainstream conservation groups no longer have the courage to go out and do the hard, on the ground grass roots work to gain public support for Wilderness. Until these groups find some backbone, we'll continue to be inundated with the Republican way of doing things.�
In the Quid Pro Quo report, Blaeloch and co-author Katie Fite outline the developing trend toward the “new breed of compromise� that has “devastating consequences� as it attempts to address complicated public land use issue that extend far beyond Wilderness boundaries.
The authors credit the passage of the Steens Mountain Cooperative Management and Protection Act of 2000 in Oregon as the “beginning of the quid pro quo wilderness trend.� This bill included lease buy-outs and exchanged 104,000 acres of public land for 18,000 acres of private land as “payment� for the establishment a 170,000-acre Wilderness.
Next came the Clark County Conservation of Public Land and Natural Resources Act of 2002 in Nevada. Among other things, this legislation earmarked 22,000 acres of public land to be auctioned off to developers for expansion of Las Vegas in exchange for 450,000 acres of Wilderness.
Two years later, the Nevada congressional delegation followed with a sequel, the Lincoln County Conservation, Recreation, and Development Act of 2004. Continuing the trend, this bill designated 768,000 acres of Wilderness, but “released� (translate, never to be Wilderness) 245,000 acres of designated Wilderness Study Areas, gave 18,000 acres of federal land to Lincoln County, established water pipeline right-a-ways to foster growth in Las Vegas and “disposed� of another 100,000 acres of federal land to be auctioned off to the highest bidder.
What the authors didn’t say was somebody has already squeezed this tube of toothpaste and there’s no going back to a perfectly full, pristine tube. Nor did they say that continued infighting between green groups plays into the opposition’s hand and weakens what I view as a fairly currently strong position.
It seems to me, in an odd twist of events, Wilderness advocates might have a window of opportunity. Wilderness is now more valuable than ever, but enviros need to play their cards better. The people who don’t want Wilderness now realize they can get their prizes—i.e. economic development money, privatization, lease buy-outs, water rights, etc.—by giving us some Wilderness. Let’s go with this, but do a better job of playing our hands.
The big problem seems to be our inability to walk away when we’re losing too much. Like any poker game, we need to win more than we lose, and of course, we need to know when to fold. We can’t give up more than we’re getting, which could be the case with some of these “quid pro quo “wilderness� bills.
Grazing lease buy-outs, for example, seem like an excellent bargaining chip. In some cases, conservation groups are actually proposing stand-alone lease buy-outs and raising private money for it, especially in areas where livestock grazing causes human-caused mortality of grizzly bears and wolves.
I suppose I’ll get some hate mail on this one, but even giving up small isolated tracts of federal land pivotal to local development goals and not having outstanding scenic or wildlife value seems like something we could throw in the pot. On the other hand, Pombo’s insulting approach or downsizing existing wild areas like the Sawtooths or “no net loss� policy for ATV fanatics all seem like deal killers.
I want more Wilderness as much as anybody, but we all need to look in the mirror and face reality. Unless we play by the new set of rules, there will be no more Wilderness, forever. Opposition to the Boulder-White Clouds Bill confirms this—and casts serious doubt on such a heavily compromised bill ever becoming law. On the other hand, as polls show in Idaho, support for Wilderness is strong, so we could cut out the most disputed provisions of the bill and land a new Wilderness in Idaho. We should not underestimate how badly Wilderness opponents want their prizes.
Think about Nevada for a moment. Wilderness proponents gave up a lot—perhaps too much, who knows—to get those bills, but here’s the salient fact of the day. Nevada now has 1,218,000 acres of new Wilderness, all approved in the past five years by an anti-wilderness Congress and signed into law by an anti-wilderness President. This tells us something!
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Comments
Without even mentioning the 20-million acre, ecosystem-based, Northern Rockies bill, now with 187 co-sponsors in the House, it's hard to engage in a fair discussion of the Wilderness options available to us. Biology and ecology are pretty scary to politicians and lawyers, but science should not scare wilderness advocates. How about a little more science, and a little less right-leaning, centrist politics.
- steve kelly
Your remark about toothpaste is similar to an argument frequently offered by the supporters of the Idaho bill: "past wilderness bills have had bad things in them, too, so we're not doing anything new here." I don't think our job as environmental advocates is simply to NOT DO WORSE than the last effort (or not do much worse).
It is generally bemoaned that there is division within the conservation community over these omnibus land bills--and certainly, my colleagues and I would rather spend our time arguing with (or prevailing against) Richard Pombo than Rick Johnson. But at issue are both principles and long-term implications for public lands. Faced with a choice between silence for the sake of harmony or disagreement for the sake of public land protection, many of us have had to choose the latter.
The role of 'good science' is promoting wilderness is excessively overated by wilderness advocates, IMO. Call in all the 'experts' and 'biologists,' but at the end of the day it is a legislative and political decision.
There's nothing new in this, of course. Anyone who knows the history of conservation can point to disagreements amongst conservationists dating back at least to the famed dispute between Pinchot and Muir.
Now there's disagreement over CIEDRA, and it's Bill's turn and mine to disagree. Bill likes CIEDRA, and I disagree with his basis for backing it.
Bill says "... we all need to look in the mirror and face reality. Unless we play by the new set of rules, there will be no more Wilderness, forever."
Here, Bill correctly argues the reality of a new set of rules. So far, so good. Many of us have seen that new set of rules in operation, and I suspect that many of us have noticed the new rules widely applied -- well beyond the realm of wilderness.
For example, where Kennedy looked around at a potentially dangerous world and formed the Peace Corps, Bush has looked around and, in response, formed the Torture Corps. And, since 1980, we have all seen the world economy "led" by new rules of the "Washington (D.C.) Consensus" on markets, deregulation, and privatization. Then, since the presidential election of 2000, we've all seen Washington gladly overthrow old U.S. rules about our treaties on nuclear testing, chemical weapons, money laundering, et al -- to the shock and horror of our European allies.
Given the vastness and pervasiveness of traditional rules replaced by new rules, it would be a surprise if wilderness designation escaped such large-scale change of rules. And, if I remember it correctly, the entire history of American wilderness has been a history of changing rules.
For example, wilderness was once governed -- and eliminated -- by the ideals of immigrant Europeans who strove to replicate the conquered landscapes of, say, an almost completely deforested British Isles.
But then, the American-born offspring of immigrant parents gained some personal familiarity with and affection for wild landscapes, and began establishing the nation's next new set of rules.
Now the rules have changed again. And Bill seems to place great faith in the permanence of these new rules, even while so much else in the category of new rules is coming under such great pressure toward change.
The 20-year dominance of the Washington Consensus is facing accelerating resistance around the globe, the Torture Corps is meeting stiff resistance, and there is a growing doubt whether the current rules set by the Radical Republican minority (which is now the political majority in Washington) is leading war and the economy wisely. So, what seems to be another next new fixed and permanent set of rules is already based on shifting sands.
Bill also says that CIEDRA backers in the conservation community are "tired of waiting" for passage of the Rockies Prosperity Act. I don't doubt him at all, but I'm not sure that impatience is prudent in any important policy question.
I wholeheartedly agree when Bill says, "We should not underestimate how badly Wilderness opponents want their prizes" That's absolutely true, and I'd agree that underestimating one's opposition is a classic mistake.
But Bill and I disagree on the legitimacy of basing wilderness policy on the permanence of current political trends, conservationists' impatience, and the fact of a strong opposition.
Yes, as Bill says, any reality testing will yield up plenty of evidence of all three. But reality testing would remind us that designation of the Bob Marshall, River of No Return, or any other wilderness would have been lots easier if the advocates of the day had made them smaller, and thrown in some prizes like privatization of public lands.
In his current essay and the one preceding it, Bill implies that backers of the Rockies Prosperity Act have adopted a strategy of "waiting" for shifts in political winds. So described, this strategy is made to seem a passive one. And Bill may peg it correctly, but only for some hearts. What appears to be a passive waiting, however, will, on closer inspection, often show itself as real effort.
Some folks look at their strategy choices, and try to make bad situations better. I think that's what Janine Blaeloch, Scott Silver, Carole King, Steve Kelly, Mike Bader, and other have been doing with the Rockies Properity Act, and that's why Cold Mountain, Cold Rivers has gladly joined their drive to save what's left of the Northern Rockies'wild spaces and species.
I think Bill goes too far in warning of "No more wilderness forever." Yes, wilderness is under great threat. But it seems a tad alarmist, at least to me, to declare that we face a now or never crisis based on a political surge that, like any other such surge in U.S. history, is probably not as everlasting as he seems to assume.
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