Well, I just knew that your good taste in brewing beer had to reflect strong and noble underlying principles in other areas and I was right. I guess this is my bona fide excuse to support the cause by driving on up to Helena and refilling more often. I like your IPA and your OPA, but, I love your cream ale.

The USFS provides more than subsidized timber sales. It provides subsidized recreation, subsidized and regulated use, subsidized hunting and gathering, and right now, probably more subsidized living than we want to know about. As long as people move every 14 days, they can live on public lands forever. Some do.

The fact that wildlands, once lost, are lost forever, is or is not, depending on who tells the story. The NREPA is full of attention to lands that have been logged, roaded, and other wise destroyed forever for wilderness.....or not...as the bill has remedies for the land, and repatriation of those lands to wilderness, and includes them in the Wilderness created by NREPA. Evidently some lands can be lost, but not all, or even any, really.

During the Great Depression, the FDR Administration bought land from willing sellers with the Rural Relocation Acts, and lands that were once functioning homesteads were purchased, and included in National Forests, and in time, some of those "wildlands" ended up in newly created big W wilderness. People had dwellings, gardens, picket fences, outhouses, wells, and now those lands are in Wilderness Areas...

It has been recently reported than in Panama, farms in the equatorial rainforest when abandoned due to soil fertility issues, are fully functioning rainforests, with all needed species present, in 50 years. The hundred foot tall trees, the whole rainforest palette is there.

Satellite photos of recent clear cut logging in the Amazon basin rain forests show ancient irrigation ditches and vast areas of past raised bed agriculture, all hidden in the rainforest until the clear cutting revealed the past activity. Someone, long ago, even figured out how to create lasting soil using carbon, terra prieta (sp?), and evidently used canals to transport this miracle soil to distant areas. Wilderness is a designation at a point in time, that reflects a past state of human disinterest in some landscapes. But be sure, those very landscapes were once home to somebody, and used in consumptive ways by humans. Either that, or Native Americans were not very well represented on the land as the Wilderness Act would lead us to believe. It is just who is telling the most compelling story.

On Bear's points, don't forget the Tillamook. Logged, burnt, burnt burnt, and then restored by hundreds if not thousands of Oregonians replanting the forest...turned out so well that the radicals in the Oregon "environmental community" tried to pass a mini-NREPA to claim the best parts as wilderness.
Finally, thank goodness Mr. Smith is no longer on the public payroll. I wonder what kind of advice he posited and what sort of negative policy results ensued...

This bill if enacted will surround my home, and 40 other stick built houses with wilderness. There are no provisions in the bill to maintain the Forest Service road into my home. I've read the bill all 149 pages of it. If any of you watched the committee hearing broadcast via the internet that this bill is going to affect homes, businesses and jobs. The prospect of the road being closed is outrageous as this road has been in existence and maintained for at least 40 years. If the govt closes roads, things like firefighting , search and rescue costs increase.

ONE MORE THING, EVERYONE KEEPS SAYING '' STUDIES PROVE THIS OR THAT" BUT WHEN PRESSED WHAT STUDIES, RARELY CAN THEY SITE THE STUDY AND THE AUTHOR OF THE STUDY...

Really Scared,

Does the bill actually call for closing your road, or just for the FS to stop maintaining it? If the latter, perhaps you and your 39 other inholders can pool your resources to maintain the road.

Well done Brian Smith. From the press headlines, Rehberg must not have stayed to hear your testimony. Damn out-of-touch, elitist, Washington, East-coast politicians.

Dear really scared: If you have specific studies in mind, I'd be glad to do what I can to point you in the right direction. Wilderness areas, like most increasingly scarce things in the world today, are increasing in value - a blessing, not a curse. Don't worry, be happy.

Really scared: Relax. Drink the Kool Aid. Don't be afraid. Listen to the guy with the knife to your throat. It won't hurt but for a little bit. Just relax and it will all be over soon and you will feel so much better about yourself and the world you personally saved for someone else. Don't fight it. We are your friends. All we want are your lands for our own immortal porpoises. Don't resist. To resist is futile. Just kneel down, and put your hands behind your head. This will be over in a New York Maloney Minute.

Or so they would tell you. The person who always has the answer has nothing in it personally, unlike you. They want what you have. You stand in the way. They will tell you anything you want to hear, but will try to do what they want no matter what. And once they have it, you will never get another kiss, a thank you note, or recognition you ever existed. If they can not pay you, they won't. I they can avoid paying you fair market value, they will. It is an adversarial world. Tooth and claw. Win or lose. Any who say not are only trying to gain advantage so that their teeth, their claws, might prevail.

Still peddling that lurid Claude Dallas Memorial Campground crap, eh, barebutt? This time trying to put a good scare into Really Scared are you?

Okay, Really Scared, let me explain something. No matter what any of the one-eyed, gap-toothed rednecks, like old barebutt, try to tell you, the truth is that the last thing that anyone is going to do through this bill is close an established access road to established residences. NREPA or not, the administrative law process for closing a residential access road would be untenable and any problems along these lines will be addressed in House/Senate conference long before it ever went to the White House. The truth, and I am in a position to speak in this regard is that, if they closed your access road, you would have been given what is known as a wilderness inholding and it would make you outrageously filthy rich. Unfortunately, you're not going to get that lucky with this bill by the time it is done. Even if they keep your road open through some sort of cherry-stem arrangement and you end up surrounded by wilderness, your property values will still go through the roof and, if you still want to live there and don't want to sell, then fine; you'll have some handsome collateral if you ever need a loan.

More testimony, one from a group of size and impact:

From a press release issued by American Motorcyclist Association day before yesterday.

U.S. House hears testimony on measure to designate 24 million acres of public land as Wilderness

PICKERINGTON, Ohio -- The American Motorcyclist Association (AMA) submitted comments today to the U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Natural Resources arguing against a bill that would designate more than 24 million acres of public land in Western states as Wilderness or Wilderness Preservation System land.

The hearing was held in the Subcommittee on National Parks, Forests and Public Lands of the Committee on Natural Resources. The legislation is H.R. 980, the Northern Rockies Ecosystem Protection Act.

"This bill is especially disconcerting due to the fact that it's being proposed by a representative from a densely populated urban area, New York City," said AMA Vice President for Government Relations Ed Moreland. "In fact, it is being considered without the support of a single member of Congress who represents the affected districts. Shouldn't the people who live in these areas have some say in whether or not they should be banned from riding in them?

"To keep OHV riders from being shut out of even more public land, we have to act immediately," Moreland said. "Concerned motorcyclists, ATV riders and others must let their lawmakers know that they enjoy motorized recreation, and that we have a right to do so responsibly on America's public lands."

Moreland's written comments submitted to the U.S. House included the following statement: "Our public lands are for the enjoyment of all Americans and not just an elite few who would have you build a fence around them for those who are physically able to enjoy them. Enthusiasts who enjoy the public lands of our nation are not just the nimble and fit but also families with small children who wish to recreate together as well as active senior citizens and the handicapped who enjoy the freedom to access the outdoors that OHVs and ATVs provide... In fact, a compelling argument could be made that this type of broad legislation does more to protect public lands from future generations rather than for future generations."

The full text of Moreland's statement can be downloaded here: http://www.americanmotorcyclist.com/legisltn/ama_statement_hr980.pdf

Gosh, for a bill that everyone is supposedly saying can't go anywhere, there sure are a lot of lowlife groups taking it very seriously. I don't see why they should be getting so riled up since they are firmly assuring us that nobody is supporting it, that it's guaranteed dead on arrival, and that we shouldn't waste our time discussing it. If all that's true, why don't they just ignore us.

why don't they just ignore us

because
Diligent vigilance is our only defense against creeping closures.

Most interesting comments. Here we have Brian Smith, a perfect example of a capitalist entrepreneur--and a beer brewer too, God bless him--being hoisted onto the gallows by card-carrying property rights activists, supposedly capitalists through and through, simply because Smith knows it's in his economic interest to have Wilderness and has the courage to say so.

Makes you wonder, just what is the real issue? Of course, that's a rhetorical question.

That testimony is spot on, boots-on-the-ground common sense.
The science backs NREPA, the economics back NREPA, and the American people who own this land back NREPA.

Full steam ahead on a fantastic piece of legislation.

Most people who are for this bill keep saying how much it will help and stabilize the local economies, but I disagree. Our economy relies heavily on motorized recreation. We have been ranked #3 in the US for the best snowmobiling, and this bill closes that entire area. Snowmobilers contribute heavily to our economy in the winter. We also have a Ski Lodge that will be closed due to NREPA. Then what will our town have in the winter? We are also home to the biggest natural lake in Wyoming. This too will be shut down due to NREPA. This lake and campground are packed during the summer with tourist. If there is nothing for them to do here, I bet they don't come. You can't tell me that this bill will do anything but hurt our economy. These areas are already protected by the USFS and there is already a lot of wilderness in this area. If NREPA passes it will be truely detrimental to Sublette County.

http://www.wildrockiesalliance.org/issues/nrepa/mapIndex.shtml

If you follow the Montana Standard link in this article, it will take you no where. Follow the link in this post and take a good long look at what you are going to lose
Take a look at the areas that will be taken. ( only the best will do. )

I have an idea, they want it so bad then force these individuals and groups to be accountable for their Wilderness. By that I mean, any fires, floods, or any other maintenance that involves the Wilderness force them to pay for it. Since the wilderness is removed from the use of the public, then why should the public pay for it?

This kind of land grab has been going on for centuries ever since the White Man started moving West and now it is our turn to be forced onto reservations ( Cities ) and dictated to as to what and where we can and cannot go and do.

Such bills raise broader issues, aside from sprawl and ORV trails. The 1964 Wilderness Act speaks eloquently of the intrinsic value of wilderness as part of our American heritage. Is the law’s vision being forsaken when wilderness becomes part of political deals designed to achieve other ends?


Because a Wilderness designation provides permanent protection for wild lands, we should ask good, hard questions about what it means.

Wilderness proponents say that preservation of wild areas are important to future generations, but how can that be if the future generations can't get to them.



The total acreage covered by the bill is 12 times greater than a 2 million-acre wilderness expansion approved by Congress and signed by President Barack Obama earlier this year. In all, the bill would cover an area equivalent to Connecticut, Delaware, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New Jersey, Rhode Island and Vermont.

Rep. Denny Rehberg, R-Mont., said the bill had greater support in Manhattan, N.Y., than Manhattan, Mont.

"This is about Washington, D.C., thinking it knows how to manage the Northern Rockies better than the people who live there. I'm here to say this isn't the case," Rehberg said.

Send a message to your representative right now using this link.

http://www.arra-access.com/campaign/advocacy_oppose_hr980/step1#



Go take a look at this map. How much wilderness do you see in the eastern U.S.

http://www.wilderness.net/images/NWPS/mapFull.jpg

Curlew, good map! Maybe it's time for the eastern states to protect their best assets and make them Wilderness. This way it will be around for generations to come. Who cares if the only ones that can use it are the avid hikers!

Curlew - all your map proves is that roadless areas are incredibly rare and that those who wish to use motors have the VAST majority of the lower 48 as their playground.

Thank you for so effectively making the point of the pro-conservation groups.

Brian Smith- unfortunately you seem to be so ill-informed as to think that you, or anyone is going to benefit in any way from designating land as wilderness under NREPA. You say yourself, "Simply put, if an activity does not create any value, then why do it?"
Tell me, how does wilderness create value? It does nothing for the land, other than to keep people from being able to use it. Oh sure, you can still hike there or ride a horse there, but for a majority of the population it's now inaccessible or nearly so. The areas of the wilderness closest to the edges and established roads will get some use, the rest will go largely un-used because its inaccessible.
This bill is being pushed by those who have very little ownership in the lands affected- it's biggest proponent is Carolyn Maloney from New York. Do you think she gives a crap about equal access for all in Montana, Wyoming, Idaho, or anywhere else out west? I highly doubt it.
As an employee of a federal land management agency myself, I see absolutely zero benefit to designating any additional land as wilderness. The majority of wilderness that is already designated goes unused, or gets very little use. Why create more when people aren't even using what is already available?
Aside from the blatantly obvious flaws in NREPA, there is a fact that large tracts of the land proposed as wilderness under this legislation do not meet criteria for wilderness- lands "untrammeled by man." Simple fact.
You are short-sighted to think this would provide any benefit to anyone, other than those who seek only to take public lands away from the public.

Yo Chase,

Since you work for the fed, how about not wasting our tax dollars and get back to work.

thanks for taking a courageous stand on NREPA mr smith. just a thought though- it is rehberg's position that 96% of us do not support this bill. how can your business possibly survive on 4% now that you have outed yourself as someone who gets it? ;)

my guess is your business will continue to grow and flourish just as the dinosaurs who do not get the value of wild land will become a smaller and smaller demographic whose ancient ideas and confused values become more politically irrelevant with each passing day. thank you.

the ohio river valley was once a choice destination for settlers because of its fertile soil and abundant game. mention the very word "ohio" now and most people conjure images of suburban sprawl. do you think the recent growth in gallatin and flathead counties is because people want to recreate the sprawl they're escaping? what sets montana apart from other states? low population and lots of wilderness area. if we don't protect some land then montana will just turn into another used-up husk that everyone wants to bypass. i think a lot of us are glad yellowstone was preserved, although we probably would have been opposed to the idea a hundred years ago. mining jobs...mills jobs...face it, they're gone and not coming back. tourism, outdoor recreation, dreaded transplants from the east and west coast (heaven forbid)...that's the new source of money out here. and as a sidenote, snowmobiling and ohv don't appeal to quite as many people as some think.

Mr. Smith, Thank you for showing your true intentions regarding the "roadless" rule, that it was meant to be Wilderness all along. There is only one problem, much of this land does not fit the definition of Wilderness. I'm sorry but drawing giant circles on maps with thick sharpies without regard to private inholdings and past management activities is by no means "science based". I now know one thing for sure, don't trust the "good intentions" of the enviros as they will incrementally chip away at basic freedoms to advance their agenda and when their done with federal land, private land is next because these are not people who have any respect for private property rights.


By the way nice "Mc"Brewery you built there in Helena, I bet you used a lot of resources(Canadian Lumber) to build that. You really do make delicious beer though and i applaud you for that, it is a noble pursuit, it helps keep my sanity in a world full of hypocrites. Maybe this summer we can sit on the patio, sip on some Organic Pale Ale and watch the fire trucks race up the gulch to make a feeble attempt to stop an unstoppable fire.

Actually, I can show WildWesterner any number of places in existing wilderness that show signs of "management activities" of one sort or another, mostly trapper and hunter cabins that the Forest Service didn't track down and destroy after the Wilderness Act was passed, or patrol cabins built by the FS or Game & Fish, or old drift fences built by ranchers, outfitters, and hunters, or old cow, sheep herding, and hunting camps that have been in use for decades.

(There's even a cabin near here in a deep Wilderness canyon that people swear was Butch Cassidy's; Butch spent some time here in between lawless exploits, but whether this is his cabin, who knows?)

Wilderness does not mean absolutely no evidence of man's handiwork. That would cut out a lot of archaeological sites of human occupation of the what is now wilderness going back thousands of years, as well as evidence of early fur trapper and later settler use.

All the areas in NREPA recommended for wilderness are Inventoried Roadless Areas from the old RARE process. Inventoried as in "scientifically assessed." The FS did the inventories. You may not like them or what the FS came up with, but they didn't just draw lines on a map. This is a fact, as I know people who worked on RARE I and/or RARE II.

The vast majority of roadless areas in NREPA are roadless for one reason: they were too high, too steep, too erosive, and too fragile to undergo logging. That is, the timber industry stayed out of them because it wasn't commercially viable to go into them, and even 50 years ago it was understood that logging on steep slopes was stupid. At least the timber industry then was a little smarter than the coal companies in West Virginia who like to lop off the tops of mountains and dump the overburden into streams.

Ecologically, these areas most certainly meet the conditions for designation as Wilderness. Once again,you may not like it, but there is good science behind NREPA. Prove NREPA supporters wrong. On the other hand, I can take you into any roadless area on the Shoshone National Forest, which is my home Forest, and provide good biological and ecological reasons for Wilderness status for each roadless area. Ditto for the migration corridors.

RH

Hoskins has it right in every respect and so does Smith. McBrewery my foot, all WildWesterner brings to the table is a pompous name and a bad attitude, both of which reflect more chip on the shoulder than any real worry that anything is chipping away his basic freedoms.

Wilderness airstrips.

Wilderness is great, getting there can be a problem until now. Why hike, take a bicycle, or God forbid ATV or motor bike when it is easier to fly. If you feel the map in my post is an issue, then you should see the one the pilots use.

You create Wilderness jump on your horse walk all day climb up over the next rise and stare into the propeller of a Cessna right at the end of a 6000 foot runway. Do you consider an airplane a motorized vehicle? Are most airplanes wheel less? Read it for yourself.
http://articles.latimes.com/2006/sep/17/nation/na-airstrips17

The issue of wilderness airstrips certainly needs to be addressed; but, it really has little to do with the topic here (NREPA). It is a bureaucratic shenanigans issue in the post-Bush BLM, having to do with a bad Obama choice for Interior (Salazar), who I'm sure guys like Curlew preferred over the better choice (Arizona's Raul Grijalva). Hopefully, the Obama Administration will be able to deal with the current crises (economy, Afghanistan, etc) and then get around to helping correct some party leadership problems in the Senate, to providing corrective guidance to Salazar and others, and to digging out the entrenched Bush holdovers who have burrowed into the agencies.

With regard to Curlew bringing the issue up here and posing it as connected with NREPA, Curlew is just unethically flying a false flag, lacing his posts with an occasional dose of environmental lingo and pretending to be what he isn't, while luring the reader close enough to enable him to spread misinformation and confusion. One of the key objectives of people like Curlew is to use disinformation to confuse, discourage, divide, and demoralize any and all progressive discussion, especially discussions on anything as progressive as NREPA. People like Curlew are the political and rhetorical equivalents of grifters, carnival shills, con-artists, and the like; just ignore them.

Do our roadless lands need permanent protection? Aboslutely! Is NREPA the answer? Absolutely NOT! The proposal is so irresponsible and over the top it will end up AGAIN in the shit-can where it belongs – unfortunately with more of tax payers’ time and money wasted in the process.

So the question becomes how do we protect these roadless lands? The Wilderness or nothing approach on this scale is doomed to failure because it does not address the economic, environmental and social fabric of the communities surrounded by so much Wilderness.

It begs the question – what are we protecting with a Wilderness designation? Is it just to preserve hiking and equestrian TRAILS or is it to prevent logging, mining, new roads and expanded motorized use on the LANDSCAPE? There are permanent companion designations to Wilderness that can offer Wilderness level protections and allow the established bicycle use on traditional TRAILS. In the roadless debate the cycling community can support new, SOCIALLY RESPONSIBLE Wilderness designations when we are included in the process and greater access dialog.

To suggest that the 2,300 high paying reclamation jobs created by NREPA would make up for of all the lost recreational revenue across the region is a joke. In southwest Montana our best and most sustainable asset is our trails on public lands. For the bicyclists’ point of view, we have world-class trails that should be protected and promoted as a key component to the region’s recreation mix. With the Governor’s loudly promoting green, geo-tourism, what is more green than a bicycle? There are proven examples from around the world where small towns that promote and protect their trail systems benefit economically and socially from mountain bike tourism. Towns across Montana are prime candidates to benefit from their trails systems if they are not cut off by the Wilderness-only method of protecting roadless lands.

Brian, we often drive up to Helena to ride mountain bikes early and late in the season when the trails around Bozeman are too wet or just to enjoy Helena’s incredible riding opportunities. We park in the lot just south of your brewery and spend hours up in the South Hills. Helena is truly a world-class mountain bike destination and the town’s vibrancy is a great example of the contribution of bicycle tourism – easy access to all those trails make it so. What NREPA would do to the riding opportunities around Bozeman and Big Sky (and scores of others across the region) would be like closing all of the trails to bikes in the South Hills right down to Last Chance Gulch in Helena. What would that do for the attractiveness of living in / visiting Helena and your beer sales? Wilderness is not the only answer for protecting roadless lands and until tools like National Protection Areas are part of the lexicon of land access, proposals like NREPA need to die and never return.

After those Helena rides I used to stop in for a beer or two. Actually really liked the IPA. Too bad for the recently acquired bitter after taste…

The recent Wild Bill article and thread concerning the topic of Companion Designations to Wilderness and bicycle access can be found at

http://www.newwest.net/topic/article/branding_wilderness_lite/C41/L41/

Here's a link to bicycle related economic and social data:

http://www.montanamountainbikealliance.com/mtb-economics

Sorry, Bob, but you can't run an economy on three months of mountain bike season. I support MTB's, but not at the expense of the real guts of a real, viable, diversified ECONOMY, based upon access to a land base with diversified, multiple uses.
And you don't protect land by un-managing it, or leaving only "natural" fires as the only vegetation driver.

Slippery slope isn't it. Bob?

What is more slippery than 24 million acres managed as Wilderness only? Just one step closer to anarchy? There needs to be a common sense middle ground.

The continental United States has lost ninety-five percent of the native forest that it had in pre-European settlement times; a tremendously long list of native species are now rare, threatened, or endangered; these last roadless areas are the best hope for preserving them; NREPA is our best hope for reliably preserving these last roadless areas; and you're stamping your feet and threatening to throw in with the likes of Skinner unless the entire Wilderness Act is opened up and exposed to a politically risky rewrite so that you can ride your bike. What were you saying about common sense?

Real Mike with the phony data. 95% of pre European forests lost. That is a crap number. Any thinking person could figure that one out in Montana minute.

We lose forests every year to fire. Stand removal fire. But the forestland is still there and it grows back. Or it is logged and damn, 40 years later there they are logging again. How about the meadows, and prairies the zealots got the USFS to plant to trees? How many prairies, fens, bogs, you name it, have we lost because trees grew in from the sides, took up the water, dried out the wet area, and that became forest instead of part of the diversity. Or we stopped controlled burns, and gee whiz, it all became trees. Too many trees.

In truth, the US is up to its ass in trees. And they are burning up at an amazing rate, because they are fuel for fires. So the same very stable and interesting group in political control today is pushing for biofuels, but not from public lands. Public land excess vegetation is not a qualified biofuel source. Talk about agendas!!!!! Control. It is about who controls what, where, and how much.

But the last, remaining 5% is a BS number. A phony number. A crap number. All kinds of land has been once logged, and then farmed, in New England, and then town provided a better opportunity for sustaining a family, and the farms were abandoned. And now New England is as forested as it was when the Redmen ruled the area. Forests grow back. In the Panama rainforests, slash and burn ag, the most primitive of subsistence living, results in land abandonment in a just a few years as soil productivity wanes. And fifty years later, the land is fully functioning rainforest. All the species, tree heights, diversity, all by university measurement, peer reviewed reporting.

Trees do live a finite period, and then die. Catastrophic event erase forests every year around the world. Storms, volcanoes, floods, fires. And every year, somewhere else a forest is in the final stages of self recovery. The world is not short of forests, forest land, or wildland. It is short of common sense in governance. NREPA, driven by a NY City congresswoman with no dog in the fight, is a classic case of a mouth overloading an ego. Her classic education in forestry was a check for her campaign and her direction on how to vote provided by someone giving her money to run for another term.

So, Real Mike, with the made up numbers, take that "woe is me, we have lost 95% of the original forests and wildland" and take a hike. The US Govt owns more than a THIRD of the US land base. Owns or controls. Has dominion over. And, there is much land that is considered "wildland" owned by private interests. They don't log it, or mine it. Some run a few cows on their land, or some sheep, just to keep the fine fuels down. But it is fully functioning wildland just the same. The reason your fellow travelers don't talk about it is because the owners keep your sorry asses off their land because once the public has access, it gets overrun by experts telling them what they are doing wrong, and what they must do, all the while making you spend your own money to do what they want.

All the roadless areas have every bit the same habitat values as Wilderness, but allow more people to use them. And, the Feds are tearing out roads daily, just so that they can't get there anymore to fight fire. It will save them money according to some pervert in a D.C. office who hasn't been west of Chicago, and he can arrange the beans to add up to that answer. That 5% number, the 95% number, came from some bean arranger with no knowledge of what he or she was talking about.

So, Real Mike, you go find the Real Numbers. Account for every acre of public and private land in the US, and give us an accurate number. If I Google Earth the state of New York, like I did last week to see where a friend's wife is moving, I am always amazed at the woodlots and forests that cover so much area. Do you count those? Do you count down to an acre of forest of undeveloped land? Where did you find that number, or was it just on a handout from the lying NGO community hard charging to gain some dough in this tough market. Their endowments have had to taken a hit, too. They need money so they give that number, Real Mike?

And by the way, Real Mike, I have heard this "last of the...(add your own name of a landscape)" so damned many times since I heard the part of the Three Sisters Wilderness in the Willamette and Deschutes NF called "French Pete." We have to save French Pete. French Pete is the last remain low elevation old growth forest in the world. Save French Pete. So in the last decade, low elevation old growth forests in area far greater than French Pete have been PURPOSEFULLY ALLOWED TO BURN because they ARE WILDERNESS DESIGNATED. Not just burn. Stand replacement fire. So I have no willingness to keep quiet about the USFS and other Federal Land MGT agencies having a plan to burn it all. So there is NO PLAN to save the last 5% of the original forests. The plan is to allow them to burn because fire is good and fire is natural and we allow idiots to make policy with NGO guidance at the Federal level. That is what the tax forgiven money from trusts and foundations can do. They can weasel their way into making Federal policy outside the legislative process. We are there today. So that is reason enough to not be in support of any part of the NREPA Wilderness protection fable. Land grabs are land grabs, and this is just another one for the burners.

So how many acres is 5% of the "original pre-European native forest", where do they currently lie, and who owns or controls those acres? Facts. We need your facts. And how many of the acres in NREPA are "pre-European native forest?" Facts.

I have had enough of the platitudes of the green side. I want absolute facts, surveys, tree cruises, an acre by acre accounting of this original native forests. Increment bored trees, carbon dating. Real science. And a critter and plant diversity document. And while you are accruing that data, please tell me how you will keep the frog fungus from being among us with NREPA. Do you have a frog fungus defense? ( So you do have to wonder if frog researchers are the carriers.)

What exactly are the rare, endangered species in NREPA? How will Hells Canyon and Yellowstone inclusion "save" woodland caribou beyond their habitat? Or Grizz?

I'll tell you what. You get your side to re-introduce the grizzly and wolf to California, in a meaningful way, and I will put my tent up in your camp. I willfully would love to see Cal-eeee-for----neee-jahh have to make a meaningful, concentrated, successful re-intoduction of wolves and grizzly bears to the once native habitat on those 45% of Cal--eee--for---neeee-jah! acres that are Federal lands. There is meaningful attempts being made to NOT burn the entire public domain at this time. WFU and AMR appear to be policy. With all that renewed habitat, there certainly ought to be room for horribilus and da wuff. Tow the dead whales they find every year to the beach, and grizz and da wuff will chow down on them. And the condors will show up for some some bone pickings. Manage dead whales (orcas tend to kill grey whales and only eat the tongue during the spring migration--of mostly this year's calves) for grizz. And there should be some dandy carrion after the fires. Make Cal---eee-for---neee-jahh! home again to Grizz and the wolf, and connectivity from NREPA to SoCal will need to happen. Right through Harry Reid's water supply for Vegas. We need Grizz feeding on spawning Lahontan cuts out of Pyramid Lake, or salmon in the rice fields where CalAg seems to direct them. Do that, and I will buy into the Grand Socialism Of America.

Sic em, Bear. Grrrr! Touche, attaboy, Goal!
Bob, you ask about "middle ground." It exists on public land. It's called "multiple use."
And there's a whacking bunch more wilderness already, something like 109 million acres already locked with the key disappeared for all time. NREPA covers "only" the northwest seven states...is there a SREPA or Sky Islands proposal floating around for the other states?
While I can't pull the "Wilderness" acres out of my hat right now, I suspect that at least ten percent of the USFS is already designated. Add to that the 58 million "roadless" acres, which are in turn fully 25 percent of the 192 million acres the USFS "manages," or used to.
Those 192 million acres are public lands, yet it is clear that at least ten percent of that land base is already set aside for the 2 percent of users that are non-mechanized, at least half of which happen to be sportsmen.
Never mind the 92 million acres of USFWS refuges. Many of THOSE are de-facto wilderness, while others are popular human recreation sites which managers are trying to re-focus toward wilderness refugia.
What I'm saying here was, Bob Marshall's trust-fund socialist roots aside, the idea of setting aside lands as wilderness was in fact a necessary thing. Most reasonable people would say that. But reasonable people would never intend for the process to be endless, to the point where "wilderness" is created by destroying infrastructure, as has been done with Wild Sky, with various and sundry cabins and phone lines, bridges, et cetera.
Never mind that the concept was enshrined in the Dombeck/Clinton "roadless initiative" in the Appendix, where a short mention of "unroading" was made. "Unroad" ground, therefore it be "roadless," therefore it be "suitable," therefore it be "wilderness." And how much land could be under an "unroading" program? 188 million of 192 million. Middle ground my tootsie.

bear-bait and dave, you guys can double team and write copious copy but can you reverse the trend that newer generations want more wilderness? no you cannot. you and your kind are dying out slowly day by day and you know it. the reason you are so desperate and verbose is to try to scare away the opposition, but the opposition is ignoring you. you are becoming more irrelevant with each post.

talk to any senate aide under the age of 40 and they will tell you that wilderness and a more natural sustainable way of managing lands is politically inevitable. there are still enough old dinosaurs around congress now to stop this, but when they die off or retire the new ones will be more than supportive. time is on our side. we can afford to wait as long as the roadless lands are protected in primitive management. none of us wilderness activists are quite as shrill and panic stricken as you two. we can wait.

as far as bicycles bob. who knows what a younger more progressive congress might come up with. i think when the old dinosaurs are gone there will be some imaginitive and creative solutions proposed.

we can afford to let dave and bear-bait rant. they mean well and they believe in what they are saying, but their time has passed them by and we don't need to actually engage them to win. time will take care of that....

Problembear: So how much land does the US Govt own and control, right now? How much of that is classified roadless? How about acres of Wilderness? National Parks? Natl Wildlife Refuges? Natl Monuments? Wild and Scenic Rivers? Natl Seashore? Marine Reserves? Military Reservations? This "last 5% of the original..." shibboleth is old faux news. Not true. A lie. So is that the basis of the younger generation? You are going to wait until forced indoctrination in public school by lefty union teachers spewing your lies brings forth a new majority? That is real Manchurian Candidate stuff. Waiting for the old guard to die. You know what? We march to eternity one day at a time, just like you. We all age at the same rate, albeit some die a whole hell of a lot sooner than others. Genes. Bad choices and bad genes are the earth's best friend.

The real deal is that the white liberal elite, the professional government class, are short termers in this deal. They don't have kids. I read a Mother's Day piece about the liberated women from the 60s on, who chose not the have children. 30% or some such number was stated. And those that do have many fewer kids, even Latinas. Their birth rate has been cut in half in one generation. So maybe the endangered species is the Vassar girl. The liberated woman. And what a selfless act that is, choosing not to have children in order to pursue a career. To what end? You ARE the end. Self centered to the end. I would have little faith in generational succession, Problembear, because since 1970, the liberated ladies of the left have used their right to choose, and chose to leave tissue behind. Those 80 million or more terminated spawn of the left will never vote for liberal causes. Nor will they, in turn, have another generation of lefties. It all ended in support of a woman's right to choose, and by that particular form of estrogen that seems to be detectable in our Western rivers. The pissing away of the future can't be removed in sewage treatment, and the birth control estrogen is now a notable pollutant of Western rivers. We now have fish with confused sexual identities. Which would make them good mascots for fund raisers for the human sexual identity challenged. A big old kipe- jawed buck steelhead with eye liner and lipstick.

So, Problembear, don't wait up nights for the next generation. You might find that they are the children of Mexican reforestation workers who lost tens of thousands of jobs to algore's claimed accomplishment, the Northwest Timber Plan. If that is the success he claims it is, then you had better ramp down your expectations for greenhouse gas reductions. NTP never met 30% of its goal, and you must know that algore will celebrate victory with a fart and a speech, both of which now qualify as point source pollution events.

And look out for Mitt Romney and his tribe. They have money, industry, members, and lots of children. You see those white steeples and the LDS signs in front in more and more places in the West. Your idealism will clash with their pragmatism, and sooner than you think, they will be more in number than you. Having kids, early and many, can do that to the voting precinct where others exercise their right to choose and choose not to have children. Those footsteps you are hearing are the children of the ethnic and religious minorities running to school. They are not going to be automatic liberals. Not the Catholics, the Pentecostals, the Muslims, the Mormons. Child regulated Chinese have children in the US because there is no government threat to them for having more than one. They will have children at least until there is a boy to take care of the parents in their old age. They gamble as a society. So they might have more than one child in the hopes of doubling up on that old age care deal, by having more than one son. You can get a girl here and there doing that. And they will all go to Cal or Michigan or Harvard to become doctors. They want to be doctors because there is NO socialized medicine in the US.

I have to giggle when I read the same old lines about the next generation going to do that and this. First, they do have to get a job. The economic turn down is reducing public employment. And the culprit is private employment not profitable, and not paying taxes to support the public sector. Add to that the missing endowment money in the trusts and foundations, and NGO jobs are fewer. A nobody can see the rescue sails on the horizon, yet. Meanwhile, every day is another day closer to eternity for the oldest and the newborn. One day at a time. Of course, you could find a way to refigure the Hubble with a mirror deal that would reflect the light from earth back to the telescope from say, 600 light years away, and then you could see how the indigenous peoples in North America dealt with fire, species, land use and land conservation. Sadly, however, it would not end the perpetual motion machine of created causes to gather money to tilt the windmill and fund the litigants. It has become its own economy, and too many are invested in that circle of money based on the fear that "the last ----- is threatened...", and you should put up the dough to defend the "name your cause" from the evil capitalists spewing (add your earthly disgrace) into the (choose one: air, water, earth, schoolyard, stream). The next generation might be less gullible. The great speechifier Obama had better get results from the oratory, because the kids are watching. He could create a new class of conservatives if he fails in his remaking of America.

wow, mr bait. that is one off the charts right wing nut rant. if you want to display it further, you may want to add more here;
http://4and20blackbirds.wordpress.com/2009/05/10/time-is-on-our-side-yes-it-is/

Wilderness is suppose to be "special". When everything not private, is wilderness, why should we think of it as special? Around Boise, there will not be any land left to snowmobile on. Everything will become wilderness. Every area we ride, will be closed. Guess what will happen then.

If you want to protect land from mining and clear cutting, then create a designation that forbids those activities upon "special" lands. (why is this idea so vial?) If you just want to create a virtual idealistic nirvana, of free animals and open land, without people, forget it. It already exists, you will do nothing for the animals. They already live in our front yards in the winter. The majority of this land, is high altitude, and devoid of animals during the winter.

When you disenfranchise large groups of people from the National Forest, the National Forest ceases to maintain long term support.

For all you horse riders, your days are numbered, after their done with motorized, their coming for you. Do you really think it will be that hard to prove that horses do more damage than OHVs, no. The weed free program is a dismal failure. Oh, and you hunters, their gaze will be cast towards you next. Don't ask for my help when I'm closed out.

Remember the glee and happiness of the Skiers in Yellowstone, when the news that snowmobiling had been banned within the park. Remember the scared looks, when the skier's allies immediately turned against them, by filing a motion to ban snowcats. Histories on my side. One by one, you'll all be banned from our public lands, or we will all be included.

What a ridiculously inane and childlike comment.