GUEST COMMENTARY: QUID PRO QUO HAS DOWNSIDE
Wilderness Strategy Questioned
Is the future of Wilderness simply more of the past?
By George Wuerthner, 2-18-09
“Compromise is often necessary, but it ought not to originate with environmental leaders. Our role is to hold fast to what we believe is right, to fight for it, to find allies, and to adduce all possible arguments for our cause.“‘-- David Brower
Dapine Herling, President of the Montana Wilderness Association (MWA), recently submitted a guest commentary to NewWest.Net titled “Opportunity Knocks for Protection of Montana’s Forests and Water.”
In her essay Daphne suggests that the reason Montana had no new wilderness in decades is largely because environmentalists have failed to seek compromises and collaboration with wilderness opponents. I agree with Daphne that negotiation and compromise is always part of any political campaign. However, negotiating for one’s perspective and then having to accept compromised legislation as part of the political process, is different than advocating for a resource industry’s financial and other interests.
An example of recent attempts at collaboration by the MWA that goes over the line towards industry appeasement includes the Beaverhead Deerlodge Partnership, which the MWA, along with other environmental groups, has endorsed. In exchange for MWA’s explicit support for logging of hundreds of thousands of acres on the forest, including in roadless areas, representatives of the timber industry have endorsed wilderness designation of lands on Beaverhead Deerlodge National Forest.
The Blackfoot-Clearwater Stewardship Proposal near Seeley Lake, Montana is another collaborative effort that the MWA supports. It is less onerous than the Beaverhead Deerlodge proposal, but still includes the MWA advocacy for a revision of the Lolo National Forest Plan to facilitate additional snowmobile use, as well as the public subsidy of millions of dollars to purchase a biomass burner for Pyramid Lumber Company that may increase logging in the local area.
What is a wilderness group doing advocating for more logging, more snowmobiling or greater taxpayer subsidies to private companies? At times it appears the MWA is spending more of its time and energy advocating for expansion of resource extraction than promoting wilderness.
Daphne implies that such quid pro quo agreements are the only way to obtain wilderness designation. Yet among the many wilderness bills in the Omnibus Public Lands Bill before Congress, none, with the exception of the Owyhee Canyonlands legislation, has any significant quid pro quo trades of public resources and/or advocacy of exploitative industries by environmental organizations.
For instance, Daphne specifically cites the Copper-Salmon proposed wilderness on Oregon’s Elk River as an example of a wilderness proposal with wide spread support. It does enjoy diverse support, but based upon its wildlands values not because some industry will garner support for resource extraction. Indeed, the Copper-Salmon Wilderness is being promoted as an antidote to the logging, which has destroyed most of the coastal salmon streams--quite a different approach than the MWA appears to envision in Montana.
Another wilderness proposal mentioned by Daphne is the Owyhee Canyonlands in Idaho. While the Owyhee Canyonlands proposal has the support of the Idaho Conservation League and Wilderness Society, it is opposed by 80 other environmental group--not exactly a rousing endorsement.
Author and Idaho wildlands advocate Ralph Maughan, expresses the dismay that many have about the Owyhee model of compromise. He recently wrote on his web page: “I’ve never been much of an enthusiast for the Owyhee Country because my picture of it is scenic, vertical-walled deep canyons with piles of manure and cheatgrass separating them. With the passage of this “unique Idaho solution,” almost everything will stay the same. Apparently the “model for the future” is more of the past.”
And that is the problem many observers find with most collaborative efforts; they tend to maintain or strengthen the social, political and financial status quo.
As a member of the MWA for decades, a former MWA board member, and current supporter, I am not comfortable criticizing the organization. I have a lot of respect for its staff and board whose motives I do not question. Some of the MWA’s current proposals such as the Scotchman’s Peak effort led by the Friends of Scotchman are good models of how to further wilderness designation by strong advocacy for the land’s wild values without compromising other public lands.
Let’s leave promotion of logging, ORVs, grazing and other traditional resource abuses to their respective industrial spokespersons. Let’s “sell” wilderness on its own merits, not as trading stock to facilitate more resource exploitation of non-wilderness lands.
As David Brower admonished, compromise should not originate with wilderness supporters. Let us be the voice for wildlands protection, always willing to articulate the many values of wildlands. If compromise is necessary, then let the politicians propose it--that is what we pay them to do. It is their job to resolve the conflicts between competing interests. It is our job as wilderness proponents to advocate for wildlands.
George Wuerthner is a former board member of the Wildlands Project, and the author of Montana’s Magnificent Wilderness, Oregon Wilderness Areas, California Wilderness Areas and 30 other books.
[End of article]George,
Let's hope this horrid trend in wilderness bargaining comes to an abrupt and final end. It's on its way there-- if the groups who have advocated for the quid pro quo approach will simply recognize its flaws and the fact that it has not been successful.
The Owyhee bill is actually a case in point--it does NOT any longer contain the mandated land exchanges that were the heart of its "quid," nor the ultra-scary local-control provisions that would have codified the ranchers and other negotiators as the supreme rulers over public lands in Owyhee Co. The bill still contains bad, wilderness-eroding provisions, but the trademark aspects that propelled the "collaborative" process in the Owyhee have been gutted.
In 2006, 88 grassroots organizations signed on to an open letter to the conservation community calling for a moratorium on support of quid pro quo wilderness. This was in anticipation of the possibility that the Republicans would lose the majority in the House in the upcoming election and thus we could return to a straight-ahead approach to wilderness. The change in Congress did happen, and one result has been that the Owyhee, CIEDRA, and other quid pro quo efforts have languished. The Owyhee bill that is currently in the omnibus was essentially rewritten by the Democrats--it had not even found a House sponsor in the Republican congress.
Both Rep. Rahall, chair of the House Nat. Res. Committee, and Senator Bingaman of the Senate Energy & NR Committee have made strong statements against quid pro quo. If the groups who pushed these schemes (and are pushing others in Montana and elsewhere) will only join these two gentlemen in a more positive, uncontaminated approach to wilderness, we can leave that trend behind.
George,
Well put. Wilderness has plenty of detractors, we need not play into their hands. There is nothing reasonable about compromising over the last scraps of wild country we have left.
Montanans for Gallatin Wilderness are crafting a 530,000 acre Wilderness proposal for the Gallatin Range of Montana and Wyoming. Here's a proposal that shouls stand on its own merits.
http://www.gallatinwilderness.org
Honk,toot,honk,honk.
Oh I hear New West's pro wilderness horn blowing again. What the band playing?
I think they are playing "I cant share the sandbox blues" By the Cheese with Wine.
Or "I've got Too Much Time on My Hands" by Styx.
As long as New West keeps putting up only this side of the argument they will not be legitimate media source. It's the same lop sided crap all the time.
Wilderness saves communities ............
Ever been to Elk City,Cooke City,Yellow Pine,Stanley,Big Sky,West Yellowstone etc in the winter and seen all the cross country skiers in the wilderness saving the economy. With all their cross country money.
Cheaper than the snowmobilers is what I hear and snowmobilers are cheap. And the wolfies even cheaper.
Good thing the New West takes you seriously cause the Real West doesnt.
New West if you want to be legit please show more than your side of the story. Go out there in the rural West come to my door and ask me some questions.
Oh I forgot most of you havent been to the areas you want to protect,nevermind.
Hairy Balz wrote: "As long as New West keeps putting up only this side of the argument they will not be legitimate media source. It's the same lop sided crap all the time."
You know what Hairy? Anyone can post an article to NewWest. You see their "Unfiltered" button on the right hand side of the main page? Give it a click, put down your thoughts and hit submit. Pretty simple, eh?
Hairy, the real problem might be that anti-Wilderness forces have a hard time putting together a decent article and would rather (for the most part) wallow in anonymity while throwing stones at the pro-Wilderness articles written by others.
The irony about the OI as I understand it, is that the ranchers in Owyhee were so scared about the prospect of a Monument, they kept their mouths shut when the bill was rewritten. Land exchanges are still possible, but subject to public oversight - which would likely stall them so long as to make them unlikely. The industry science board is still included - which could muddy the waters on existing science that clearly indicts the disgraceful management currently inflicting the Owyhee. It's a sad, dishonest process.
Comment By Hmmmmm, 2-19-09Next time you fellers come out of the wilderness to pick up some more food and the latest donations to your cause, you might want to pick up a paper and read it. There is a recession going on, and over a million folks in our country are out of a job. Closing off more and more places & eliminating more jobs so you have an exclusive place to play in is not going to help.
Comment By Randall, 2-19-09Hey Hmmmm, there's that anonymity again. And there's that old saw again, we better go ahead and develop everything quick in the name of jobs. Tourism is a big job creator in this state last time I checked and what do you suppose folks are coming here to see? More stumps and roadkill?
Comment By Doug Ferrell, 2-22-09Thanks to George Wuerthner for this thoughtful essay about wilderness strategy, and for all his great work on behalf of wilderness.
I have a different view than George of the strategic approach embodied by the Beaverhead Deerlodge Partnership, for a reason that I think deserves some thoughtful consideration by all lovers of wilderness. George criticizes that in this partnership “MWA goes over the line in industry appeasement” because of “explicit support for logging hundreds of thousands of acres on the forest”.
This statement might ring true for me if I believed that logging on national forests was inherently bad, and that MWA had made an unfavorable deal with the devil to allow this to happen.
If we conservationists change our perspective to view the timber industry as our natural ally instead of our inevitable opponent, then I think a lot of things change. One thing is that we don’t have to keep fighting the old wars with the industry. More importantly we can recognize the very important fact that today, what the industry wants is seldom in conflict with our goals of protecting wild country.
Yes we were the natural opponents of the industry during the era that the national forests were pushing new roads into the backcountry, but those days are long gone. Today very modest harvesting projects on roaded areas of the national forests are struggling to gain approvals and funding. Today these projects are based on ecological research and many are designed to restore forest health. It is past time for conservationists to change our tactics and quit fighting the old wars.
As long as we have defined the timber industry as our opponent, and as long as they have defined us as their opponent, we have each been highly effective at preventing each other’s success. We have been able to stymie each other goals. Some people want to stay on this path but the MWA and many others, including many timber leaders, have a different vision.
When we can agree that the national forests should provide both abundant wild places and well managed productive forestlands, we can gain the support of a vast majority of Montana voters. We can break through the gridlock we are all tired of and get some positive things done. In the case of the Beaverhead Deerlodge, this includes designating a whopping 500,000 acres of wilderness.
How much are you wilderness advocates planning to pay for your exclusive usage of the wilderness areas? I know many of you advocate that others pay "market price" to use public lands. that seems like it might be kind of steep, but how much are you advocating you should to pay, especially if you get to be the only users?
Comment By Geo., 2-22-09Thanks Doug for your perspective. Always good to hear from you.
Comment By Geo., 2-22-09Marion:
Glad you're getting around.
As for market price, there is a substantial difference between paying for the commercial use of the public resources, and use by the public itself.
If I may make an analogy, it is not unlike the situation whereby some private companies use public facilities like universities for events, and must pay a fee for this usage--think of rock concerts. But if a student organization or other public non-profit wants to use the public facilities this is usually done at little or no cost to the organization.
People cutting timber on public lands. People drilling oil and gas on public lands. People grazing on public lands. Etc. all must pay a fee for this usage. And this usage should be such that it does not degrade the public's resources.
George thanks for another thought provoking article on wilderness and our natural resource debate. I was a supporter of MWA, MWF, and NWF until they thought that their efforts would be better spent supporting non-wilderness, habitat and aquatic abuse, contrary to their supposed mission.
Brian Horejsi recently wrote an article concerning the possible appointment of Dan Kemmis as undersecretary of Agriculture and how “Public lands management has continued not just to drift, but to rush, toward the lowest common denominator”. I believe his piece can be applied to the above groups in the current wilderness debate as well.
“I see little evidence he understands appreciates or supports the broad use of ecological science to under-pin decisions about public lands and biological diversity conservation. He would continue to move away from the brilliant visions and legislation born in the middle 1900s and would strengthen the privatization agenda of special-interest users like the timber, grazing and oil and gas industries. There is a role for public lands in the battle to reverse global climate disruption, but Kemmis and collaboration/consensus decision-making will not fulfill that role. Public lands management has continued not just to drift, but to rush, toward the lowest common denominator. Framed as innovation, experimentation, collaboration, partnerships, consensus and other "broken wing" strategies, all have led away from the tried and true measures of land and wildlife conservation: roadless lands, low road densities, very limited industrialization and very limited motorization. This is not a time for more of the same, even dressed in the language of experimentation. This is a time for sound science and preferably a science-trained leader at Interior; it is time for a strong public regulatory process, full and open access to that process, and de-emphasizing local control of the land still owned by all Americans.
Lucky for wilderness advocates there are groups out there that truly do support wilderness and the preservation of healthy forests and watersheds. And it is those organizations that those of us that care about saving the last best place as the last best place should be supporting.
Hey, Fairy Ballls, please, tell us just WHY you consider yourself to be "the real west". Are you a comedian, or just stoopid? I love talkin' to you real west fellas. Come ON, Fairy Balls. Tell us sumthin' we don't know. Spent a lot of time in Cooke BEFORE the invention of the snowmobile, didja Fairy? I think you're a phony, pal. Tell us some people you know who stay in Cooke year round. I know folks who have cabins there. They're not INTERESTED in Fairy Balls and his real west mythology. And, Fairy Balls, do you really figure that Cooke City will be an economic engine some day? You're goofy, Fairy.
Comment By George Vincent, 2-26-09GW et al.,
Maybe it would have been different if MWA had gotten something for their collaboration with timber -- but timber STILL didn't deliver Denny Rehberg, and so what was "given up" was for naught. Not to mention that their proposal only concerns one agency, creating ecologically absurd boundaries.
Can this proposal be saved?
One danger that I have found in "saving" bad proposals is that, once a formerly disenfranchised "outsider" comes in and saves them, the original perpetrators of the bad proposal immediately seize upon the victory and publicize it as a vindication of their original, usually toxic, efforts and often end up recovering enough strength and rejuvenated credibility to be even more of a problem in the next round.
This article was printed from www.newwest.net at the following URL: http://www.newwest.net/topic/article/montana_wilderness_assocation_strategy_questioned/C41/L41/