Four Corners Stew

Pair From Durango Works to Save Roadless Areas

By Ken Wright, 2-23-06

When the Bush Administration announced last May its long-anticipated revision of the Roadless Area Conservation Rule, it didn’t bode well for the nation’s remaining 58 million acres of unprotected road-free lands.

This plan replaced the Roadless Area Conservation Rule, which was passed in January 2001. The National Resources Defense Council called the 2001 rule “the most significant conservation measure in United States history� for its protection of nearly one-third of national forest land in the country.

The new rule creates a “collaborative path� for roadless-area management by allowing state governors to petition the Department of Agriculture to develop management regulations for roadless areas in their states. The petitions must identify the areas to be managed and propose management rules. If a state does not file a petition, then the established forest and resource management plans will remain in effect.

The result, according to most environmental groups, will be the opening up of previously protected roadless areas to development, and a state-by-state hodgepodge of roadless-area management styles.

In response to this in Colorado, groups now are presenting their reports and stances on the issue to the governor’s Road Area Review Task Force, a bi-partisan 13-member panel created to help decide the fate of Colorado’s roadless areas. And leading the charge for protecting those areas is a most unlikely duo from Durango, representing a most unlikely organization.

David Petersen, a nationally-renown hunting ethicist and author of thirteen books, and Brian O’Donnell, a long-time activist for the Wilderness Society, opened an office in Durango last spring for Trout Unlimited’s Public lands Initiative program. Launched in late 2003, the goal of the program is to unite sportsmen usually leery of environmental groups around the cause of defending the nation’s public lands, particularly the country’s 58 million acres of unprotected roadless areas.

O’Donnell is national director of the Public Lands Initiative. Petersen’s title is Colorado Coordinator for Roadless Lands Protection.

Petersen also is now a member of the Road Area Review Task Force.

“Colorado currently is home to three surviving species of native cutthroat trout,� he argues in response to the rule. “All three are imperiled, and all three depend on roadless areas.� In addition, he says, “Colorado’s premier big game animal is the North American Wapiti, or elk. Roadless areas provide critical summer habitat for more than half of these animals.�

According to Trout Unlimited, half of the nation's blue ribbon trout streams – the highest ranking of health and quality bestowed a trout fishery -- are found on public lands. Also, 80 percent of the most critical habitat for elk is also found on lands managed by the Forest Service and the Bureau of Land Management. Since more than 50 million Americans hunt and fish, according to the organization, this is a powerful force waiting to be wielded to protect the lands essential to these sports.

Durango was chosen as the site of the Public Lands Initiative office because, says O’Donnell, “Durango is a microcosm of the whole West.� Hermosa Creek is the largest unprotected Forest Service roadless area in Colorado, and the entire region – including critical low-elevation roadless areas in the nearby HD Mountains -- is threatened by explosive oil-and-gas development.

Most important in opening an office here, though, was that both O’Donnell and Petersen call Durango home. It is the place to bring together their diverse talents. And coming from their backgrounds as sportsman and activist, they each believe they have found in Trout Unlimited a shared front from which to fight for the places they love.

“Hunters and anglers are the original conservationists,� says O’Donnell. “Trout Unlimited has been called the greenest of the hook and bullet groups, and the hook and bullet of green groups. It is a chance to engage with a new constituency, a community that can make real change on the ground, and big changes in the West if done right.�

Petersen agrees. “This is the hottest thing going in conservation right now,� he adds. “The most altruistic, far-reaching conservation effort in America.�

Petersen is familiar with this mission. As a free-lance writer, author, and public speaker, much of his career has been dedicated to defending ethics in hunting, particularly as it relates to the protection of wildlands in the spirit of what he calls “enlightened self-interest.� As the person in charge of getting the word out about roadless-area threats and protection in Colorado, Petersen’s job is to write letters, editorials and magazine articles, and to make public presentations and PowerPoint programs for hunters, anglers and the general public.

“I bring my experience as life-long hunter and angler to design ways to get this group more involved,� he explains. “I’ve seen a whole universe of places to hunt and fish gone, gone, gone. If this happens again in the next 50 years, there’ll be nothing left.�

“Hunters have historically gotten upset when someone threatens to take their guns or hunting rights away,� he continues. “But if you have don’t have a place to hunt or fish, you have nothing to fight for.�

As the overall director of Public Lands Initiative, O’Donnell comes into the position after serving as Associate director of Wilderness Support Center for the Wilderness Society, where he helped grassroots groups develop wilderness proposals. After six years in that position, “I had accomplished a lot of what I had wanted to do,� he said. So he took some time off to think about what he wanted to do next. That question was answered when he saw a classified ad in High Country News seeking a director for Trout Unlimited’s Public Lands Initiative.

“This is great,� he explains. “In some other organizations, people feel a little beaten down. In Trout Unlimited, there’s excitement.�

And there’s need for that excitement, he says, because “the threat to roadless areas is unprecedented, especially with oil and gas development. The pace and freewheeling approach of giving away leases before looking at impacts has even long-time energy supporters stepping back.�

Since its founding in 1959 by a small group of fishermen in Michigan, Trout Unlimited has grown into a successful national fishery conservation organization, with 135,000 members working in 500 chapters nationwide, including 8,700 members in 20 chapters in Colorado. In southwestern Colorado, the group is represented by The Five Rivers Chapter, which works in the interest of the Dolores, La Plata, Animas, Piedra and San Juan rivers.

Trout Unlimited’s core mission is “to conserve, protect and restore North America’s trout and salmon fisheries and their watersheds.� The Public Lands Initiative expands that mission to include off-stream issues that affect fisheries and wildlife on public lands, particularly in the West, where most public lands lie. Specifically, the program mandates three efforts:

-- Develop scientific and technical information proving the importance of public lands to fisheries, wildlife, fishing and hunting;

-- Build an alliance of Trout Unlimited members, wildlife and fishery conservation groups, hunting and angling clubs, and fish and wildlife professionals to advocate for management policies that protect the long-term health of public lands;

-- Inform the public on the importance of public lands in protecting and restoring fish and wildlife habitat, and the fishing, hunting and other outdoor opportunities public lands provide.

Specifically, the program seeks to reclaim mining-damaged lands, minimize the effects of gas and coal-bed methane production, and protect roadless and wilderness areas. This last task is the charge of O’Donnell’s and Petersen’s office. Their aim is to bring to bear the political and economic weight of hunters and anglers, a group not generally aligned behind the defense of roadless and wilderness areas, on the protection of these threatened lands.

“This goes beyond just maintaining streamflows,� says Petersen. “It’s in everybody’s backyard now, so this is a juncture of threats and opportunities, a time for hunters and anglers to get together.�

“This is a different approach than other environmental groups,� says Petersen. “There’s been traditionally a deep-set distrust in traditional environmental groups of hunters and anglers, and there’s a noticeable minority of hunters and anglers who don’t like environmental groups. Both are broad generalities, and they are mistaken on both sides.�

Clearing up those mistakes is the task of the Public Lands Initiative, he says. “There’s a core at the center that needs a rallying point,� Petersen explains. “We want to honor and support both sides and do what we can to bring them together. TU is beautifully positioned because they’ve been a remarkably successful as an environmental group, and they’re trusted by hunters and anglers.�

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Society is like a stew. If you don’t keep it stirred,
you get a lot of scum on top.
-- Edward Abbey

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