WILL IT END OR EXTEND THE WILDERNESS DROUGHT?
The Beaverhead-Deerlodge Partnership: Right Idea, Wrong Bill
Several mainstream groups have joined forces with representatives of the wood products industry in a grand attempt to end what I call the "Wilderness Drought." But, the bill that has come out of one collaboration could extend, instead of end, the drought.By Bill Schneider, 11-28-08
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| The Pioneers. Photo by Jacob Cowgill. | |
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For four years, I’ve been writing about what I’ve coined the “Wilderness Drought,” 25 years of frustration and infighting since we’ve seen a single acre of Wilderness designated in Montana. Now, several mainstream groups have joined forces with representatives of the wood products industry in a grand attempt to end it.
The political reality of today requires this collaborative, “bottom-up” approach because politicians are so gun-shy about Wilderness legislation. They only want lay-ups with all stakeholders already on board, which is the motivation behind this upcoming legislation. After decades of nothing, Montana wilderness advocates have decided to play the new, quid pro quo game to have some chance of success.
Regrettably, this flawed bill looks more like a half-court shot for our congressional delegation and could extend instead of end the Wilderness Drought.
You have to admire the effort. After years of hard work, thousands of miles of driving, and many dozens of meetings with agencies, timber mills, bike clubs, county commissions, three mainstream green groups (Montana Wilderness Association, Montana Trout Unlimited and National Wildlife Federation) and five leaders of the wood products industry (Sun Mountain, Pyramid Mountain, Roseburg Lumber, RY Lumber, Smurfit-Stone) developed the Beaverhead-Deerlodge Partnership (BDP) and then drafted the Beaverhead-Deerlodge Conservation, Restoration and Stewardship Act (note the absence of the word, “Wilderness"). This bill was written two years ago, but still has not been introduced. Now, the BDP partners are pressuring the delegation to go for it when the 111th Congress opens for business in January.
That still gives us enough time to fix the bill’s shortcomings and turn a good idea into legislation most wilderness advocates can support, but will this happen? Hopefully, but I’m not going to hold my breath for this to happen.
At this point, the partners seem locked into the current plan, even though everybody is not on board, to say the least. Many pro-wilderness groups oppose the current version of the bill, as do mountain bikers, plus all the usual anti-wilderness suspects--the motorized recreation industry, miners and other “single users,” and some segments of the timber industry.
So what does the BDP bill do? In short, a lot, but most significantly, it would:
- Designate 14 new Wilderness areas in southwestern Montana adding up to 573,000 acres of new Wilderness, including 82,300 acres added to two existing wilderness areas, Anaconda-Pintlar and Lee Metcalf. Critics of the bill charge that the bill protects only the high, rocky centers of mountain ranges, which is generally true, but in many cases, the rest of the range has been roaded and no longer qualifies as Wilderness.
- Relegate roughly 2,300,000 acres of the 3,350,000-acre Beaverhead-Deerlodge National Forest (largest in Montana) to “stewardship areas” and declare 700,000 acres “eligible” for timber management within one year of the date the bill passes, but require that all new roads must be “temporary.”
- Require the Forest Service to “mechanically treat” 70,000 acres, land at high risk of wildfires and insect infestations.
- Sacrifice more than 200,000 aces of roadless wild land to timber management.
- Essentially, “undesignate” and open to logging two existing, congressionally protected wild lands, Sapphire Mountains and West Pioneers Wilderness Study Areas.
You won’t see anything about those last bullet points in the draft legislation or mentioned the BDP website, but these are certain to be the most controversial clauses in the bill--and the sections in dire need of revision before introduction.
The Sapphires and West Pioneers get capital letters because these aren’t your run-of-the-mill roadless lands. Both are protected under the S. 393, the Montana Wilderness Study Act, passed in 1977, when Montana had Mike Mansfield and Lee Metcalf in the Senate--and sadly, a year before Metcalf passed away and Mansfield retired.
Perhaps the most significant clause in S. 393 is Section 3(a), which states: “…The wilderness study areas shall, until Congress determines otherwise, be administered by the Secretary of Agriculture so as to maintain their presently existing wilderness character and potential for inclusion in the National Wilderness Preservation System.”
Amazingly, 31 years ago and unknown to many people, this so-called “interim protection” clause essentially made Wilderness out of the nine wild lands. If the BDP bill passes, we’ll be down to seven, which makes the BDP bill white-hot controversial among wildernuts who believe it sets a horrific precedent of, in essence, “undesignating” Wilderness.
I’ve been around a long time and actually lobbied for S.393 on behalf of the Montana Wilderness Association (MWA). I know the spirit and intent of this bill was that these nine areas would become Wilderness, but they would be studied first to determine the exact boundaries. I had the personal honor of meeting Lee Metcalf, and I suspect he’d roll over in his grave if he knew the MWA supported logging most of two of the largest, choicest WSAs in S.393.
In the BDP bill, only the highest, rockiest, non-timber-producing core of the 151,000-acre West Pioneers WSA becomes a 34,000-acre Wilderness with the rest going to the timber industry for “stewardship” logging. Ditto for the 94,000-acre Sapphire WSA, which the bill slashes into the 43,000-acre Sapphire Wilderness.
Another key tract of wild land, the West Big Hole (not included in S. 393 but should have been) suffers the same fate. The 150,000-acre roadless area becomes a 92,000-acre Wilderness.
In all three cases, the lower, flatter, more productive, timber-growing sites, the best wildlife habitat and hunting land, goes to the timber industry and the high-altitude, often treeless country--or the “rocks and ice” to opponents--that rarely is threatened with development becomes Wilderness.
Because of this loss of key roadless land, many Wilderness groups oppose the BDP bill as written. Consequently, it has done nothing but intensify the already intense impasse between Montana green groups, which has contributed heavily to--if not caused--the Wilderness Drought.
While on the MWA Council, I also worked on the last Wilderness designation in Montana, the Lee Metcalf Wilderness, passed in 1983, 25 years ago. Since then, green groups have been locked in a bitter death grip over how to proceed and contributed to Montana’s delegation being either opposed to or uninterested in any Wilderness bill.
Revising the BDP bill to fully protect the Sapphires and West Pioneers and more of the West Big Hole would make it much less controversial and more appealing to the congressional delegation--and get most of the wilderness community on the same page, for once!
I support the quid pro quo approach, but not when it gives up three spectacular de facto wilderness areas, especially when two of them already have been protected by an Act of Congress. As far as I’m concerned, this is no different than wilderness advocates giving away part of the Bob Marshal or Absaroka-Beartooth. Hopefully, BDP partners will see this way before it’s too late.
Click here for a Powerpoint presentation on the BDP.
Click here for contact info and links to all BDP partners.
Click here for related articles on Montana’s Wilderness Drought
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Comments
Like many others, including Bill, it has repeatedly occurred to me that the logging jobs promised for the past quarter century were not sustainable. That is, they'd come and go. Way back when the Forest Plans started coming out in the 1980s, old hands in the environmental community were warning that the level of logging being proposed was not sustainable, and I wondered then why labor and the politicians were, without saying so, supported a logging and jobs boom that would bring Montana and other western states' communities to a bust.
Well, the '80s were certainly a period of boom, including a nationwide construction boom that began with a loosening of lending and logging standards, and ended with a crash that became known as the S&Ls;debacle and taxpayer bailout of the finance industry. And, of course, it also delivered a sudden loss of western states' logging jobs, jobs that were promised to deliver prosperity to local communities.
These job losses were foreseeable, and foreseen. For example, in its Autumn 1984 issue, the Montana Business Quarterly reported that the heavy harvest of large-diameter trees found in old growth forests would result in the loss of 1,000 to 3,000 jobs in the woods, and would thereby strip $20 million to $60 million of labor spending out of the very communities that were counting on that money. And that's roughly how things turned out. By 1987, the U of Montana's Bureau of Business and Economic Research could report that logs were coming off Montana mountainsides at record levels. I don't have the data close at hand, but someone more diligent than I shouldn't have a lot of trouble finding a late 1980s or early 1990s Flathead County report that a big chunk of the county's unemployment could be chalked up to loss of jobs for fellers and limbers.
My bias toward labor led me to conclude then that the rank and file of the logging industry got hung out to swing in the wind. And the history of logging since the '80s has firmed my concern. I'd really hate to see it happen again, and not least because it would be yet another case of jobs and forests both chopped for the sake of making temporary work, when less cutting would stretch the jobs base out over a longer period of time.
Lance
You ask, "How many areas are you ready to sacrifice to burning with no restoration?"
You may have noticed that lodgepole burned in the 1988 Yellowstone fires have restored themselves, without cash outlay by the taxpayer. You may have seen much the same self-restoration of forest that was burned in another fire of the '80s -- inside the Bob Marshall Wilderness.
Long before either of those fires, glaciers snapped off trees galore as they moved down the Rockies, and forests bounced back without help as the glaciers retreated. And in the centuries between the glacial retreat and the post-fire recovery of today, forests grew and thrived without the capital-intensive kind of management called "restoration" today.
That said, rising pressure from climate-driven seems to be making claims of restoration less plausible than in the past. Like recovery after fire, recovery after management action is under strong restraint by increasing heat and drought. For example, a heat-driven dieoff of pines in New Mexico took place 50 years ago, and the foresters watching the area say the pines there show no sign of recovery after these 50 years.
You ask "Why not log and replant with species appropriate for our current climate conditions?"
You're getting close to something recently suggested by CIFOR, the Jakarta-based forestry group. And close to something that might find the two of us in agreement.
I say "close" partly because our current climate conditions can't last, and will become more severe. So, when CIFOR released its very recent report on adapting forest management to the next rounds of cimate change, it suggested replanting but not with the species currently found at present day locations.
I also say you're close because this sort of management planning is only in the early stages of thinking, not settled science, and would be pretty much an experimental thing. But I think it's well worth trying, certainly not everywhere, but certainly on at least some of the acreage we've already logged. After all, if the assumption is that we really can extract wood on a sustainable level, the proving grounds are on the grounds we've already logged.
Sustainability is a key question here, including sustainable jobs.
So far, we've seen that lands where timber was available for logging -- and cut -- in the '80s has not produced lasting flow or jobs; timber available in the '80s is gone, and plenty of jobs with it.
I woudn't support logging pushed into fresh ground -- roadless country -- until the industry side can show me that it can manage sustainably on the ground it's already had made available to it. On that ground, I see real opportunity for ideas like replanting with tree species that stand a chance under new climate conditions.
Are there details in need of sorting out? Sure. But there's a lot of acreage out there that's already been cut, and that's where the real action is going to be.
In the meantime, congress will be working to just pass NREPA and this will be a moot point. Let's hope this happens.
It probably has a best economic and ecological fit on private lands. And it would likely work best there if public forests weren't used to dump lots of wood on the market, in effect competing unfairly with private landowners who might want to try for a sustainable commercial plantation.
The other part of the plan is to exploit our wildlife habitat. Don't you find it unusual that the Montana Cooperative Elk-Logging research recommendations are not even mentioned? Nothing on habitat of mule deer,wild sheep,bear, and many other species.The USFS also violated Title 18 USC The False Statements Act..a felony.This plan should die a fast death and never see the light of day, it's a hoax.The USFS could manage timber now under current laws if they wanted to without this rediculous plan.Don't be led down primrose path that there is something in this plan for wildlife,public land access and hunting. Trade offs of public land resources is illegal and I finally got the USFS to admit it.This plan should go to the recycle center and a total waste of our taxpaying dollars.
1. Wilderness areas allow hunting
2. Wilderness areas allow public access
3. Ted Turner does not own USFS land and has no say in blocking any established USFS access routes.
While I may not agree with parts of this plan, I do fully support wilderness protection.
A HUGE problem with the proposed Beaverhead-Deerlodge Partnership Plan: it whacks the Big Hole with the bulk of the logging. At risk: elk security, sediment runoff & native fishes (grayling & cutthroat), and scenic views around popular campgrounds.
The proposed Big Hole clear cuts need to be reduced by about 100,000 acres per year--perhaps this acreage to be clear cut can be shifted to the West Madison. Oh no, I forgot: the Greater Yellowstone Coalition won't allow that. Too bad the Partnership folks didn't ask Butte activists about clearcutting the Big Hole.
It would be enormously embarrassing to Senator Tester for a Wilderness Bill to go down in flames because it is opposed by Butte-area environmentalists.
Jack, you should be pleased to know that Bush on his way out the door has declared that the U.S. Forest Service will no longer be allowed to transplant Bighorn Sheep on Public Lands. Just think of all the prime Bighorn Sheep habitat there is in the B-D Forest, NOW all off limits to native Bighorn Sheep. You can thank the Helle’s (big domestic/public lands welfare grazer) and the American Sheep Council for their support of this privatization of our Public Lands in the name of grazing. Which many welfare ranchers mistake as a right and not the legal privilege it is.
Ask NWF, MWF, and TU how their Plan covers grazing on the B-D and who is going to pay to buy out the privileged. This is no way to protect one of the last best places of Montana
But the Plan needs to be modified in some respects in order to gain grassroots support, especially among those most likely to be strong supporters. As you point out, the recession has wiped out the "timber economy" for the foreseeable future. That leaves wilderness activists, elk hunters, etc to support the bill.
Let's get the best bill we can. EcoRover blog http://ecorover.blogspot.com
The Metcalf bill called for a STUDY of wilderness designation, but again, it seems that anything STUDIED is automatically supposed to be wilderness by the lights of the wilderniks...who have one way of looking at the land, and only one.
The Partnership was a "give us our wilderness, hose everyone else, and we'll not sue your logging to a standstill" kind of deal, yet the language has no prohibitions against other parties monkeywrenching the economic portions. It's all front-loaded wilderness designation, and there's no guarantee that wood will be available -- no matter the market. So Sherm's mill dies anyway, the wilderness happens, and the affected counties are reduced to selling necklaces and condos.
Perfect.
if you like to fish, wilderness is the best way to ensure good watersheds. if you like to hunt elk, wilderness is the only way to insure good calving grounds. if you just like to drink clean water and breathe clean air then wilderness is the best option for all roadless lands in Montana. it is going to surprise many people how much support for wilderness there is out here. we have been sleeping through the Bush years but we are awake now and the time is right for a truly comprehensive wilderness bill for montana in 2009. Montana is as good as it gets right now- and that is pretty good. but, if we miss the opportunity to protect these areas now it can only go downhill.
as my logger uncle said at a wilderness hearing years ago "if these lands were worth anything for timber, believe me, we would have logged it by now. leave it alone. it don't cost anything and we get way more value out of those areas from wildlife and clean water. leave it alone..." real conservationists like my uncle who used to work in the woods for a living knew how valuable roadless lands were to the health of the forest. there is little enough left. it is time to protect them all.
now the political landscape bodes well for lots of good things to happen. why not a comprehensive wilderness bill that really sends the message that montana is serious about protecting our most important watersheds and wildlife habitat for future generations.
infighting was really only the ability of savvy right wing republican politicians and their aides playing wilderness groups for fools. and boy did it work. totally new atmosphere now with brian, tester and the new congress. and max was just being max. he can't help it. i think pat williams can talk some sense into max now that obama is prez. the politics was just not there then. it is now if the leaders of the various groups can set aside ego long enough to agree that we don't have to pander to timber industry now (dead) and nobody likes the mining industry anymore after cleaning up their mess for the last 100 years, and finally we don't have to listen to congressional aides trying to play one group against another group to try to get us to compromise way before it is necessary. it will take a lot of beer but i think we can get the mwa and awr together to form an alliance and agree that the last acres of wild land left is little enough to save. that's why.
I love it when roadless areas burn right through Salmon and Steelhead habitat and full the stream with silt and mud. Talk about clean water!! I love to go in wilderness areas outside of Bozeman and hike and see the trails unmaintained and mostly a pain in the ass the hike on. Full of downfall and the like.
Good luck trying to do that in Montana once they figure out Problembear wants to end recreation. It might be purple but it aint green dood. So take your MWA AWR rhetoric spin it sideways and stick it sraight where only your boyfriend goes!
see you at the congressional field hearings next fall, fella. we'll see how that type of talk goes over with tester and baucus. i try to be bigger than annoying gnats like yourself so you'll excuse me if i ignore whatever meaningless aimless hate filled babble you spout next.
I find it unfortunate that mountain bikes are not allowed in Wilderness areas, but nobody is proposing to turn every acre of roadless area into Wilderness, there will always be enough mountain bike trails left. I'd rather give up a mountain bike trail than see wild areas destroyed by off-trail ATV use, oil and gas exploration etc.
OK, now let's see your second claim about "Wilderness areas outside Bozeman". First of all, there aren't any within 20 miles. Within 30 miles there is the Spanish Peaks and Beartrap Canyon areas of the Lee Metcalf Wilderness, and the northwestern part of the Absaroka-Beartooth Wilderness. All of these have well-maintained and (sometime too) heavily used trails, in much better shape than many non-Wilderness areas. Which Wilderness trails were you talking about?
why doesn't someone of the stature of pat williams just invite the leaders of these groups to meet and hammer out these differences and get back to saving wild lands in a united fashion again? it would be awful hard for any leader to turn down an invitation for this meeting and doubly hard to not agree to disagree and bury differences so that they can form a united front again considering the changed political landscape of this country and our governor. come on you guys - yer burning daylight!
The economic, social and health contributions of mountain biking around the affected towns should be nurtured and promoted as an integral piece of forest planning and a lucrative component to the regional recreation mix. Until cyclists are included at the table as equal partners when the future of the B-D forest in being discussed, the B-D Partnership Strategy Plan is little more than a slick pr campaign for a controversial and exclusionary proposal. At first glance, who can resist the feel good image of loggers waltzing with Wilderness folks?
Ironically, a precedent setting agreement has already been negotiated in the Beaverhead-Deerlodge National Forest in the form of the High Divide Agreement. Representatives from cycling organizations from Anaconda, Butte, and Helena were able to sit down in 2007 with the Montana Wilderness Association and other non-motorized users and forge this agreement that supports new Wilderness while protecting and extending the riding opportunities in those areas including continued bicycle access to the Continental Divide National Scenic Trail. While MWA is actively and loudly promoting the High Divide Agreement as proof that they work with cyclists, they refuse to have a similar dialog concerning the rest of the B-D National Forest and the CDNST. In the spirit and success of the High Divide Agreement, the Partnership proposal falls short on building the level of collaboration needed to protect the entire B-D NF resources while enabling the communities to fully profit from the type of quiet, clean and green bicycle tourism that well maintained and promoted trail systems will attract. There are proven business models from around the world where mountain bike tourism has revived and sustained small town economies. Cyclists are respectful guests and spend money in pursuit of riding and enjoying beautiful singletrack trails - the holy grail of mountain biking. It will be a win / win for the towns that embrace the greater cycling community as willing, responsible and appreciative partners in preserving, protecting and promoting our public trail resources.
The Partnership Plan’s current configuration needs to be completely overhauled by seeking a broad base of support or scrapped all together.
Logging is not a cure-all for forest health, nothing is. But logging can reduce fire intensity, and it is needed to keep the wood processing infrastructure in place in Montana. Every so often the lawn needs to be mowed. Logging can take a dying forest and rejuvenate it’s health and animal habitat. In defense of the Partnership Plan (BD-PP), I believe that the logging component is appropriate. The plan fails because of the critical point that any planned logging sales are not guaranteed to be litigated. This failing must be corrected to give the plan legitimacy, or the entire premise of the plan becomes a Wilderness front-loaded sham.
The BD-PP deserves to be completely developed. It should be removed from congress and brought forth to all of the ignored stakeholders for adjustments. Some Wilderness would be removed, but other areas would be added. Other alternative land designations should be applied as well, because Wilderness is the biggest hammer in the box, and not always the appropriate answer to every land management question.
The visionary partnership, which collaborated on this plan, must be commended for efforts thus far. But their failing is that they lost the courage to allow their vision to stand up to the complete spectrum of stakeholders. If the plan is pulled, but not killed, it can be saved with some more work. Plans such as this have realistic chances of success, because of micro scrutiny, and area-by-area detailed analysis. Montana citizens deserve to get past the divisive politics, so we can truly enjoy life in our great state. We all deserve a hand in shaping a statewide Wilderness bill, not just professional collaborators. We need to work with Idaho legislators as well on protection for our shared border, not just locking up the Montana side while letting the Idaho side turn into a motocross course. Protection does not always mean Wilderness, but it would probably mean some sort of additional control over access that we currently enjoy. It likely would mean a hands-off management policy in places, leaving some areas open to fire, but not mining or mechanized logging. I repeat, Wilderness is not the only answer.
The MWA and the BD-PP are trying to reflect the realities of the economy, environment, and national politics. This is a far more pragmatic approach than the idealism and selfishness of the NREPA. The NREPA completely misses these targets. One point I must make, you people embracing the NREPA as the best environmental answer are living in a fantasy world. You must learn to share the Rockies with others. You are not alone in the world.
The vision of the NREPA must be commended. A plan that would attempt to return the Northern Rockies into a fairyland of wildlife corridors is really cool. But it’s reality just plain sucks. It is wasting everyone’s time, energy, and emotions. One could base a TV drama series on all the things that could go wrong if it passed. One of the most tragic would be the very realistic specter of the cheapening of the Wilderness Act. The disrespect by so many citizens of the Act, because of this overreaching bill, could easily lead to the eventual dismantling of the Act itself. Wilderness is too permanent and important to be designed so carelessly. The “wildest bill on the hill” is a joke; it should be called the “most irresponsible bill on the hill”.
The biggest problem with this whole issue is an ingrained lack of trust among all parties. Many conservationists quit believing the Forest Service years ago when it talked about how it would do things right. And many in the timber industry quit trusting the FS years ago when it demonstrated that it couldn't deliver on the promises of timber it had made.
If the FS and the loggers who get contracts to cut timber could be trusted to actually do the job right, and then remove roads, revegetate, and also restore other adjacent areas in the process, then the impacts on the forests would be more acceptable. However, too many examples exist of horrendously bad logging practices in the past to justify great optimism today that the work can be done prudently and with minimal impact.
I support NREPA, but I also support a viable timber industry - built around small operators and independent mills, not Plum Creek et al - that can exist over the long term.
I don't regard the partnership as a sell out, I regard it as a legitimate attempt to move forward with sensitivity to small rural communties as well as the land. Those interests are not mutually exclusive.
That being said, I don't support the release of the Pioneers or the west Big Hole from wilderness protection. I also don't support obtaining nothing more than rocks and ice wilderness when those high elevation areas aren't threatened to begin with. Perhaps there is room for some compromise on the fringes of roadless areas, but the ecosystems themselves should be protected, and any logging that is allowed on the fringes should include removal of all roads and future management that includes no motorized access.
In my younger days, I was willing to disregard the feelings of many rural folks regarding wilderness and logging and access. While I don't agree with many of their viewpoints today, I do recognize that their concerns have merit, and the future of rural Montana communities shouldn't be utterly disregarded when addressing forest management issues.
I will always be a wilderness advocate, but that doesn't equate to being opposed to all logging on public lands. Surely there is some kind of reasonable compromise that can be reached short of eliminating all logging on public lands or, conversely, making short term and unsustainable incursions into roadless lands for a short-term fix to the logging industry's woes.
Those woes currently have less to do with access to roadless land (subsidized by taxpayers) and more to do with brass tacks economics.
The partnership plan may be flawed, but I don't think the intent is bad at all. What is most dangerous, in my opinion, is the increasing schism between Montanans regarding public lands management. Any attempts to sit down and talk about those issues, with open minds and open ears, can't be all bad.
Me too. And passage of NREPA can take us closer to that goal, not further from it.
As one Forest Service staffer told others, later circulated when the meeting minutes were printed, "We sure skinned a lot of country out there." Well, the place to kick off the region's sustainable timber industry is out there, on that country that's already been logged.
Managing the already-logged acreage on a truly sustainable basis, which means managing it for jobs that can last, is way overdue, and the region really needs us to try for it now. But continuing to open the roadless unlogged sells the region's timber industry short, and perpetuates a dependency on lands best set aside for all the other purposes that roadless spaces will serve.