WILD BILL

Outdoor Industry Association Should Stand Up For Wilderness

Bill

I cancelled my membership with REI some years ago when I learned that REI and other members of the OIA opposed Teaming for Wildlife, a plan to generate funds for conservation through excise taxes on outdoor gear. Teaming for Wildlife was based on the Pittman-Robertson Act (1937), which hunters supported throughout the 1930s to generate funds for habitat through excise taxes on sporting arms and ammunition.

Since hunters have been willing to tax themselves for habitat for decades, not to mention pay additional taxes on outdoor gear for habitat, I was profoundly disappointed that other outdoor recreationists and the outdoor gear industry--a pretty well-off bunch, to think of it--both opposed Teaming for Wildlife vehemently. What a bunch of selfish slobs!

Now, to hear that these folks refuse to support wilderness. We should banish them to empty swimming pools to ply their trades.

Best,
Robert

The Conservation Alliance is made up of the very companies that you are speaking of, and they are also members of OIA. So, I appreciate that you want OIA to step up to the plate on their stance to wilderness areas, but they are an "outdoor" industry group, covering all areas of outdoor recreation. The Conservation Alliance however, is participating in conservation; they give out conservation grants, they lobby on behalf of environment, and are putting their money where their mouths are. This group came out of belonging to OIA, and I see them as having a mission statement more in line with what you would like. I know that GoLite is part of the Conservation Alliance, and going to the president of GoLite, (Kim Coupounas) would probably not bode well for those groups that currently receive grants from them. I hope that this is helpful.



Krista Hanada

NFPA


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The Conservation Alliance is a non-profit organization of outdoor businesses whose collective annual membership dues support grassroots citizen-action groups and their efforts to protect wild and natural areas. One hundred percent of its member companies' dues go directly to diverse, local community groups across the nation - groups like Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance, Alliance for the Wild Rockies, The Greater Yellowstone Coalition, the South Yuba River Citizens' League, RESTORE: The North Woods and the Sinkyone Wilderness Council (a Native American-owned/operated wilderness park). For these groups, who seek to protect the last great wild lands and waterways from resource extraction and commercial development, the Alliance's grants are substantial in size (about $35,000 each), and have often made the difference between success and defeat. More...

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Save Our Wild Salmon - March 2006
California Wild Heritage Campaign - March 2006
Idaho Conservation League - March 2006
Coal River Mountain Watch - March 2006
Montana Wilderness Association - March 2006
Arizona Wilderness Coalition - March 2006
Winter Wildlands Alliance - March 2006
RESTORE: The North Woods - March 2006
Forest Watch - March 2006
Oregon Natural Resource Council - March 2006
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In reading your 4/24/06 State of the Industry report it pretty well outlines why the OIA shouldn't support more Wilderness. It states that outdoor recreation is trending away from backcountry which would be the Wilderness areas. It also states that backcountry tent sales have been declining and that people are buying big tents to car camp. Also it states the largest section of outdoor recreation is bicycling which isn't legal in Wilderness. Why would they want to turn away $5.5 billion in sales?

OIA expects outdoor activities to morph into one. That can include snowboarders and cross-country skiers who use snowmobiles to access terrain further from the trailheads and to use for transportation to get back up the hill to ski or board down or to haul camping gear out into the woods so more time can be spent skiing, shoeing, and boarding.

Since only about 5% of the forest visitors use the Wilderness, you are asking OIA to cater to the 5% of the users and to ignore the other 95% of the users. Do you think that would really be good for outdoor recreation to ignore the majority of the users?

I think your State of the Industry link in the first paragraph sums it up as to why the OIA SHOULDN'T support more Wilderness.

Schneider makes unsupported--and ultimately untrue--allegations that climbing organizations like my former employer, the American Alpine Club, are "outright opposed to Wilderness or politically cool to the idea."

Until earlier this week, I directed the AAC's public policy program for 10 years, and I can say with great certainty that the AAC and most climbers are passionate about protecting wilderness. We testified before Congress in 1964 to support the Wilderness Act and have supported many other wilderness designations over the year--most recently the proposed Wild Sky Wilderness in the Washington Cascades. Most of the significant mountaineering and climbing destinations are located in wilderness, and if not for climbers like Muir, Brower, Marshall, Leonard and others, we wouldn't even have the concept.

Over the years the AAC, Access Fund and other climbing organizations have argued with the federal agencies and some purist wilderness organizations over appropriate interpretation of wilderness regulations, but this has always been an internal fight among passionate wilderness supporters. (In many cases the federal agencies adopted rigid interpretations of the Wilderness Act that could not be justified by Congressional intent, some of which ultimately were rejected by the courts.)

Schneider's biggest failure is to recognize that there can be intermediate forms of land protection between designated wilderness and effectively no regulations. Many, including the AAC, argued that non-wilderness roadless areas were a great place to allow human-powered, but in some cases mechanized recreation, without allowing motorized access. And, when I was fighting to protect mountaineering on Denali National Park's non-wilderness southern park additions from snowmachine and scenic flight incursions, it sure would have been nice to have Schneider at the table helping.

I thank Bill for a good article, and I take exception to the observation by Glenn W. that only 5% of the FS visitors "use" wilderness. That is a very narrow definition of "use". Whether you actually hike in wilderness or not, you may in fact be benefiting from wilderness because wilderness designation protects many resources that "flow" from it including clean water, scenic quality, wildlife, clean air, and so on.

For instance, the "blue ribbon" Yellowstone River in Montana is often completely dewatered by irrigation withdrawals between Gardiner and Livingston in droughty summers. But because the headwaters of the river are in Yellowstone Park (effectively a wilderness area) where no withdrawal is permitted, the river has sufficient flows to maintain high quality fishing. Ditto for other well known western trout streams including the Madison, Gallatin, South Fk. Snake in Wyoming, Salmon in Idaho, and so on. So someone "fishing" on the Madison is "using" wilderness even though they may not walk a single trail.

We should not underestimate the value of just natural scenery. One of the great pleasures I had when I lived in Livingston, Montana was looking up at the peaks of the Absaroka Range within the Absaroka Beartooth Wilderness. Those peaks and the scenic vistas of them had a lot to do with why I loved living in Livingston. Whether I hiked in those mountains or not, I benefited from the lack of clearcuts on the slopes that often characterizes other non-wilderness areas.

Even the people in RVs and of that ilk benefit from wilderness. There are plenty of "scenic" highways around the country whose outstanding scenery is protected by wilderness designation. Everything from the Kanamugus Highway in New Hampshire's White Mountains to the San Juan Sky Way in Colorado to the Big Sur Highway in California are all good examples of roads that run adjacent to designated wilderness whose scenic value is protected by the wilderness.

Similarly if you look around the West at where all the best elk hunting districts are located, you will find them adjacent to or in designated wilderness areas. Why? Because these roadless lands provide the best high quality security cover in the West.

I could go on and on with examples, but there's plenty of evidence to demonstrate that wilderness is a big economic engine as well as a major contributing factor to a sense of quality of life for people whether it is actually directly "used". If you take such an expanded view of wilderness, OIA is missing the boat by not supporting more wilderness.

It is always worthwhile to monitor the web site for American Recreation Coalition, as well as their membership, to see upcoming trends in motorized, highly commercialized recreation. Scott Silver's Wild Wilderness site also contains news and views of interest to anyone following wilderness issues.

I agree with George Wuerthner's comments, although I would strengthen his comment on the value of wilderness areas and areas managed similarly to wilderness as nursery and refuge areas for wildlife of all kinds. The elk that I enjoy and only occasionally cuss on my place reintroduced themselves from nearby wilderness. The birdlife that enriches my sweaty work breaks depends on undeveloped and protected stopping points from Argentina to the Yukon. My pronghorn exist because they can winter on a lower elevation ranch that is only grazed at a table meat level and jealously protected by a curmudgeon owner.

In all of these cases, vital parts of the "system" are sustained only and can be sustained only through controls of one type or another, with formal wilderness designation seeming to be the most reliable over the longer term, especially as my generation passes and a new generation that holds so many urban, gasoline-powered, air-conditioned "entrepreneurial" neo-cons takes increasing control. Certainly not all of the younger crowd fits this stereotype. Unfortunately, the many that do seem to wield disproportionate influence and are using their influence to preach and spread among their peers a hollow and twisted religion of selfishness, predation, and greed only thinly disguised as some overhyped, but ultimately meaningless and self-serving, commitment to "free-market forces."

Which brings me to REI and the starting point for this string of comments. I hate to throw rocks or see rocks thrown at REI because I have gotten my long winter underwear there for years and staying in denial is more convenient and comfortable for me. At the same time, I have noticed, over the years as I have received my annual ballots for new board members, that things have been changing. REI has become "bigger" business and the board has shifted to more business types, people who either tout their business credentials first in their campaign blurbs or who put in happy pablum that says nothing about who they really are because they aren't sure they want people to know who they really are. The proportion of teachers, coaches, social workers, and outdoor "free spirits" has gone down and the presence of MBAs, retired brokers, accountants, and old CEOs and CFOs has gone up as our society's perceived frenzied need to squeeze an extra percentage point of profit growth out of everything has intensified.

I am not saying that REI is unique in this transition; they simply seem to be following a national craze both inside the outdoor sports industry and across our culture. Neither am I saying that every MBA, accountant, or retired CFO is a bad person.

I am saying that, once a commitment to act according to a set of goals and principles devolves into a commitment to do so IN A MANNER CONSISTENT WITH MAXIMIZING REVENUE GROWTH AT AN ACCEPTABLE LEVEL OF RISK, then, despite anything else that you might think you are doing, you truly have already put yourself on the path to knowing the price of everything and the value of nothing and that applies to knowing the value of wilderness itself. You can mask yourself with a disguise of patriotism or Christianity or whatever you choose and may feel better about yourself for it; but, if you act, day-to-day, in a manner primarily driven by revenue maximization, then you will inevitably find yourself supporting the paving of paradise to put up a parking lot ...as long as the ledger sheet shows that to be your most profitable market-based move.

I find myself completely in accord with Mike's comments, especially the last paragraph. The last paragraph points up the serious problem with dominant economic viewpoints, whether as they apply to society in general or to conservation in particular. Those who tout "free-market" solutions to conservation problems, such as protection of biodiversity, forget or deny that economics is but a means to an end. When economics becomes an end in itself, and values are equated with prices, which are very poor forms of information indeed regarding the health of the world we live in, we find that the bottom line of production and profits always is more profitable than conservation. The latter does not pay, as far as the quarterly status sheet is concerned. In short, in the market, conservation cannot come close to paying the dividends that production does. Ergo, we have no conservation worthy of the name.

Wilderness is a public good that we must all pay for, not to produce profits in the market, but to ensure our survival and the survival of all species. It is a public good that makes our non-economic lives better and more fulfilling. It is a public good that gives other species a fighting chance to survive in this selfish world of ours. It is a kind of control, a restriction, on ourselves, to protect non-economic values that cannot compete in markets but without which, in the end, we cannot survive at all.

I thought I should chime in on the subject of REI.

The point I was trying to make in the article is that the Outdoor Industry Assn, as a representative of most outdoor retailers, large and small, as well as manufacturers, sales reps and a variety of other businesses, is really the one that should stand up for Wilderness. I intended no criticism for REI or any other OIA member. Having owned an outdoor business myself for twenty years, I also made decisions not to stand up on controversial issues. I wanted to sell to everybody, of course, just like every OIA member.

REI has done more to promote Wilderness preservation, as well as many other green causes, than most businesses. Yes, they have become more "corporate," and I'm sure even REI would agree with that, but in my humble opinion, REU is still a leader among businesses in conservation ethics.

My point is: REI doesn't need to make the tough call. OIA should do it for REI and the rest of its 4,000 members. This could really make a difference.

Bill Schneider

You are typical of the reactionary eco-nazi mentality. The OIA does NOT support OHVs in roadless areas, but they support OHVs on roads, and by definition a ROADLESS AREA can't have any roads. So stop being an idiot and accept the fact that roads are built for MOTORIZED recreation and transportation. And by the way, many of us use much of the same equipment as you elitists do, and guess what, some of us even hike and enoy other outdoor activities INCLUDING OFV use.

So...who's the narrow minded one here?

Brad:

You're incorrect about one thing--the Roadless Rule only precludes the construction of new roads, but does not preclude use of these areas by motorized vehicles such as ORVs. Nevertheless, the use of these roadless areas by ORVs can later preclude their potential designation as wilderness. Thus by supporting motorized use of roadless areas as quoted above in Bill's article, OIA is in effect taking a stance that is anti-wilderness designation.

Until the the Forest Service separates mountain bikes from motorcycles, mountain bikers will be opposed to new wilderness desingnations. Why would we want fewer places to ride when existing trails are constantly being closed to biking? There needs to be a new land-use designation or mountain bikes need to be allowed in (some) wilderness areas. In many places, bikes would do less harm than horses. Horses are allowed in wilderness. Why not bikes?

As far as OIA "making the call" for REI and it's other members, if a majority of members don't want new wilderness designations what happens to an organization that ignores its majority? Not too hard to figure out!

The problem with mountain bikers, dirt bikes, and thrillcraft in general is the perception and idea that the natural world is a big giant gynanisum for their personal use and challenge. Wilderness is one of the few land uses that puts nature first--and appropriately so in my view. Just because there are some uses like horses that do damage--does that make it right to allow another use that also does damage? The bike shrinks distances and distances are one of the things that makes wilderness special. My god Patrick there are about 400,000 miles of logging roads on public lands, not to mention tons of trails open to bikes--do you have to go everywhere? I say this having just finished riding my mountain bike--on a gravel road where it belongs. I would rather have no one allowed to recreate in wilderness areas than allowing new use after new use to gradually shrink and degrade the wildlands for natural processes and wildlife--and that is what mountain bikes do along with other thrillcraft. Keep your bike in the gym.

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Mountain bikes are not made exclusively for dirt roads and gyms. They are made to ride trails. I am not saying they should be allowed everywhere. My point is only that there are plenty of areas where bikes do no harm. THere are plenty of trails where you would not be able to tell if bikes had been there or not. There are no tracks and no additional erosion.

I would like to see how much support you would get for your "no one allowed to recreate idea"! Tell the horsepackers they can't use the land, and they will have a fit. Tell the hikers they can't use the land, and they will also have a fit. Can you tell me why we need land where people can't go?

Mountain bikes are non-polluting, which significantly distinguishes them from "dirt bikes and other thrillcraft", as well as horses.

Good to meet you in Washington. Regarding Wild Bill's comments in the New West article, I think your position is reasonable and he represents a vocal but fringe element. Most of our members oppose the expansion of ATV use on public lands just because they are so intrusive, but banning all mechanical transport is politically untenable. The other challenge in any area "eligible" for wilderness is group size, which is commonly 8 and not consistent with use by many organized groups, like Elderhostel's interpretive trips which have to be run cost effectively. The new NPS policies define 86% of National Park lands as wilderness, which include all lands and waters within the boundaries of the NPS wilderness inventory. This includes eligible, study, proposed, recommended and designated areas. Look forward to working with you and Frank in the future.

David Brown, America Outdoors

Weyerhaeuser has millions of acres of managed extreme geography that would be ideal mountain biking media. They don't want nor need the motorized public on their land. You have to wonder if mountain bikers could make their case to Weyco. No conflict with hikers, horse packers or ATVs, as well as cars and trucks. Weekends only, of course. Perhaps a hold harmless liability agreement and a trespass fee, and all the thrills you could ever want. And it won't ever happen. The EcoLuddites will find that mountain biking erosion has harmed a stream or some such claim, and Weyco will fold like a cheap lawn chair. It happened to them in the Spotted Owl inventory process. Contract owl callers drove on dirt in winter, behind locked gates, and the timber company was found in violation of clean water standards. Fined for doing the "right" thing. We live in a litigating environment, and lawyers, not scientists, will always determine what path we all take.

MBA's are very aware of what's going on from an environmental impact, corporate responsiblity, and social awareness sense. Not all MBA's are concerned with "squeezing an extra $ of profits for the company." I'm proud to have a MBA and I use it to promote responsible usage of land and wilderness areas. I'm a huge lover of the outdoors and want to see it used appropriately.