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August 2003
Volume 8
Welcome to the Wilderness Guardian, a monthly online digest
dedicated to providing up-to-date news and information concerning
Wilderness protection and stewardship nationwide. A service of Wilderness
Watch, the Guardian was created to help Wilderness advocates keep
abreast of breaking news, as well as providing contact information
to facilitate public participation.
Interesting Tidbits & Wilderness Quotes:
Thank you! – Wilderness Watch would like to extend a
big "thank you" to everyone who sent a letter to the Forest
Service in the Selway-Bitterroot Wilderness (MT) concerning its
proposal to allow a permanent storage shed and the use of a motorboat
(both flown in by helicopter) for dam maintenance in the Wilderness.
The sheer number of letters will send a clear message to the Forest
Service that this type of project is not appropriate in Wilderness!
Quote:
"Take away wilderness and you take away the opportunity to
be American."
- Roderick Nash, Wilderness and the American Mind
Contents:
Wilderness News Briefs provide short issue summaries and contact
information. Action Alerts are full-length, time-sensitive postings.
Wilderness News Briefs:
1. Good News for Desert Wilderness – Interior Board of Land
Appeals places a stay on wildlife "guzzler" in California
Wilderness.
2. New bill would undesignate portions of Cumberland Island Wilderness
(GA)
3. Return of the Outfitter Policy Act
4. Wilderness Consolidation? (OR)
5. National Park Service will conduct fuel management activities
in Yellowstone Wilderness without motorized equipment
6. Off-Road vehicle access in Wilderness for the U.S. Border Patrol?
Action Alert:
1. Need for Closure – Urge the Forest Service to close road
threatening the Rich Mountain Wilderness, GA
*Wilderness News Briefs*
1. Good News for Desert Wilderness – Interior Board of Land
Appeals places a stay on wildlife "guzzler" in California
Wilderness.
In July, Wilderness Watch, Desert Survivors, the Center for Biological
Diversity, the Natural Resources Defense Council, and the CA Wilderness
Coalition filed an appeal and petition for a stay on the Bureau
of Land Managment's (BLM) decision to allow construction of an artificial
water development called a 'guzzler' in the Sheephole Valley Wilderness
in the CA Desert. This guzzler was to be the first of 100 new guzzlers
that the CA Dept of Fish & Game (CDFG) hopes to construct in
the CA Desert, including 22 inside designated wilderness.
We recently learned that the Interior Board of Land Appeals (IBLA)
granted our stay request. This means there will be no construction
in the Sheephole Valley Wilderness until IBLA rules on the merits
of our appeal, which can often take a couple years.
The CDFG believes the guzzlers will result in enlarging and expanding
populations of desert bighorn sheep, which means that more hunting
permits could be sold. However, there is no scientific basis for
this belief, and several of CDFG's past experiments with guzzlers
ended in failure, with major sheep die-offs. This is because forage
is the primary limiting factor for the sheep, not water. Building
guzzlers and transplanting sheep into the area does not mean there
will be sufficient food for the animals. In one case all the transplanted
sheep starved to death in the first year.
For More Information: TinaMarie Ekker (406) 542-2048 ext.
3, tmekker@wildernesswatch.org
2. New bill would undesignate portions of Cumberland Island Wilderness,
GA
Senator Chambliss (R-GA) and Zell Miller recently introduced legislation
(S. 1462) to undesignate portions of the Cumberland Island Wilderness.
The legislation would undesignate two unpaved sandy jeep trails
named the Main Road and the Northcut Road along which the National
Park Service (NPS) and the Greyfield Inn have conducted controversial
motorized tours. Wilderness Watch has been in court for the last
year arguing that the NPS has no authority for taking tourists on
motorized van tours through the Wilderness, nor for issuing a commercial
entity, Greyfield Inn, a permit to drive its customers on tours
through the wilderness.
For More Information: George Nickas, (406) 542-2048, gnickas@wildernesswatch.org
3. Return of the Outfitter Policy Act
From RRFW Riverwire:
For the 6th straight year, the Outfitters Policy Act is back in
Congress. Introduced in the Senate by Larry Craig (R-ID) on July
16, 2003, the bill is somewhat scaled down from last year's version,
but still contains many key elements detrimental to the general
public's access to federal lands.
The bill affects all lands managed by the United States Forest Service,
Bureau of Land Management, and Bureau of Reclamation and the commercial
outfitters that use those lands. This bill embraces the "allocation"
model for outfitter access and would be detrimental to every member
of the general public who wants to access federal land with or without
an outfitter for any purpose. Allocating access to a resource with
a fixed number of outfitters moves outfitting from the free market
to an oligopoly. This increases prices for the public who needs
outfitted services by decreasing competition among outfitters. It
could turn the privilege of a federal recreational use permit into
a form of legal property right that the outfitters could trade,
sell or inherit. The bill burdens federal land managers by forcing
them to guarantee a "reasonable opportunity" for a successful
business venture to commercial outfitters and guides using public
lands, thus granting outfitters potentially greater access to federal
lands than the general public. The result of this bill would be
to give the outfitters and their patrons a preference over other
user groups.
The bill could also reduce or eliminate outings by non-profit civic,
religious, children's, and environmental education groups in our
nation's most popular recreation areas. Even volunteer-led outings
could be reduced or eliminated.
You can read the full text of the bill at the Thomas website: http://thomas.loc.gov
4. Wilderness Consolidation? (OR)
The Forest Service in Northeastern Oregon is proposing a land exchange
that would affect the acreage and management of the Wenaha-Tucannon,
Hells Canyon, Eagle Cap, North Fork-John Day, and Monument Rock
Wildernesses. Known as the Blue Mountain Land Exchange, the project
would trade 20,568 acres of Federal lands for 36,453 acres of non-Federal
land. Though Wilderness Watch is still reviewing the proposal, we
are pleased that the Forest Service is taking steps to acquire private
inholdings, thus reducing the number of access permits and the threat
of future development in Wilderness. Ideally, the exchange would
better consolidate Federal land-holdings (both Wilderness and non-Wilderness)
facilitating a more comprehensive management strategy to protect
the areas’ wilderness character (including habitat for threatened
and endangered species). In addition, the exchange would acquire
lands that include segments of several Wild and Scenic Rivers, thus
bettering the chances for their preservation. It is our hope that
the Forest Service will work to ensure that land exchange does not
remove protections from key riparian areas, habitat zones, or stands
of old growth.
5. National Park Service will conduct fuel management activities
in Yellowstone Wilderness without motorized equipment.
The National Park Service has decided to use non-motorized equipment
to implement its Wildland-Urban Interface Fuels Management Plan
in Yellowstone National Park Wilderness. The Plan, adopted to protect
25 backcountry cabins from destruction by forest fires, requires
park personnel and contractors to access the Wilderness by foot
or packstock. All fuel reduction efforts, such as thinning, will
be carried out with non-motorized handtools unless an emergency
arises which threatens the health and safety of persons in the area.
In addition, the Plan prohibits the use of prescribed burns, a tactic
that manipulates the vegetation in an attempt to control wildfire.
All fuel reduction efforts will be subject to both the minimum requirement
analysis and the minimum tool analysis in an attempt to minimize
the project’s impacts.
Wilderness Watch challenged the Park’s initial environmental
assessment, which called for the use of helicopters and chainsaws
to protect the cabins. We applaud the National Park Service’s
decision to implement the plan in a manner consistent with their
mandate to protect Yellowstone’s wilderness character.
6. Off-Road vehicle access in Wilderness for the U.S. Border
Patrol?
Motor vehicle use by smugglers, immigrants, and the U.S. Border
Patrol continues to spiral out of control inside the Organ Pipe
and Cabeza Prieta Wildernesses in Arizona. The following articles
suggest that the Border Patrol stays on "existing, maintained
roadways" -- although there are not supposed to be any maintained
roadways in wilderness, the US Fish & Wildlife Service has developed
what it calls "administrative roads" inside the wilderness.
On-the-ground evidence demonstrates vehicle use criss-crossing this
arid desert wilderness, the largest refuge wilderness in the lower
48.
"An Arizona senator wants the U.S. Border Patrol to have more
off-road access when combatting illegal smuggling operations that
rip through pristine deserts along the border... Border Patrol agents
do regularly see a 20-minute video about environmental sensitivity
and how to handle it, said Border Patrol Tucson Sector spokesman
Rob Daniels.
"We always try to stay on maintained, existing roadways,"
Daniels said."
Tucson Citizen -- August 26, 2003
http://www.tucsoncitizen.com/index.php?page=local&story_id=082603a1_cabezaside
http://www.tucsoncitizen.com/index.php?page=local&story_id=082603a1_cabezamain
*Action Alert*
1. Need for Closure – Urge the Forest Service to close road
threatening the Rich Mountain Wilderness, GA
A fortuitous turn of events has provided wilderness advocates with
a golden opportunity to end years of motor vehicle trespass in the
Rich Mountain Wilderness (see Wilderness Watcher, Vol. 14, No.1,
Feb. 2003). For years, local ORV enthusiasts have used an old, deeply
rutted and eroding logging road that divides the Wilderness from
Cold Mountain roadless area, as a jumping off point to ride through
the Rich Mountain Wilderness. The Forest Service has been unwilling
to close the road—because Gilmer County has in the past claimed
ownership of it—and unable to stop the vehicle trespass.
Fortunately, Gilmer County recently relinquished any claim it had
to the road, so the Forest Service is unhindered in determining
the route's fate. Unfortunately, the agency is proposing to close
only the last 1.5 miles of the road, leaving 8 miles of the Wilderness
boundary unprotected and susceptible to even higher levels of vehicle
use.
Wilderness Watch's Georgia Chapter has written to the Forest Service
urging it to convert the entire road to a foot trail noting that
this would go further toward accomplishing the agency's own goals
of reducing erosion along the route, improving water quality in
the creeks that drain the Rich Mountain area, eliminating vehicle
trespass into the Wilderness and improving visitor safety. We also
pointed out that closing the entire route would enhance visitors'
wilderness experience and area's wilderness character. It would
also make it possible to some day add the Cold Mountain area to
the Rich Mountain Wilderness.
To voice your support for closing the entire 9.5-mile route, contact
Jim Wentworth, Brasstown Ranger District, PO Box 9, Blairsville,
GA 30512. For more information contact Wilderness Watch.
___________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Since
its founding in 1989, Wilderness Watch has pursued its mission
as the citizen voice for Wilderness
stewardship, giving a voice to the wilderness and wild rivers of
our national preservation systems. We
seek to preserve our unique natural heritage - the public will articulated
by the Wilderness Act and Wild
and Scenic Rivers Act.
To join Wilderness
Watch please visit our website at www.wildernesswatch.org.
If you would like to subscribe or unsubscribe from
this list, have any questions, or would like to post a news
release, please contact Hilary Wood at hwood@wildernesswatch.org.
If you prefer the post, please send your
letters to:
Wilderness Watch
P.O. Box 9175
Missoula, MT 59807
Ph: (406) 542-2048
Fax: (406) 542-7714
http://www.wildernesswatch.org
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