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June
2003
Volume 6
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:
Wolves in the Wild – The New Mexico Dept. of Game and
Fish is set to reintroduce eight wolves into the Gila Wilderness.
This is the second reintroduction so far this year, with eight wolves
reintroduced on April 8th.
Quote:
"If future generations are to remember us with gratitude rather
than contempt, we must leave them more than the miracles of technology.
We must leave them a glimpse of the world as it was in the beginning,
not just after we got through with it." - President Lyndon
B. Johnson, upon signing of the Wilderness Act, 1964
Contents:
Wilderness News Briefs provide short issue summaries and contact
information. Action Alerts are full-length, time-sensitive postings.
Wilderness News Briefs:
1. Mining Company to Reopen Roads and Drill in Wilderness (ID)
2. Salt Lake Tribune Blasts Owyhee Initiative (ID)
3. Forest Service opts to use Helicopters for dam Repair in Wilderness
(MT)
4. Comments Result in Improved Fire Plan for the Seney National
Wildlife Refuge, MI
5. Gila Ranchers Trespass Cattle on Wilderness, Harming Endangered
Fish and Wildlife (NM)
6. Wilderness Travelers often rely more on Technology than on Skills
(Duluth News Tribune, MN)
7. Natural fires allowed to burn in Frank Church – River of
No Return Wilderness, ID
Action Alerts:
1. Wilderness 101 – Republican Leaders in Alaska look to redefine
Wilderness to condone motorized use in Denali National Park. Send
them your letters!
*Wilderness News Briefs*
1. Mining company to reopen roads and drill in Wilderness (ID)
From Wildlands CPR:
Payette National Forest Supervisor Mark Madrid has signed a record
of decision for the Golden Hand Mine. The alternative chosen allows
American Independence Mine and Minerals Inc. to reopen about three
miles of road to access mining claims and drill test holes in the
Frank Church-River of No Return Wilderness. The selected option
modifies the proposed plan by reducing road construction, allowing
no trenching, no residence at the site, and adding more mitigation
and monitoring, the Forest Service said. Activities there are limited
to three years.
Conservationists warn the Golden Hand Mine is in the Middle Fork
of the salmon watershed, home for several species of imperiled fish,
including chinook salmon and steelhead. "The mining company
assumes that a claim gives them a license to build roads and drive
bulldozers into this
wilderness, which simply isn't true," said John Robison of
the Idaho Conservation League. The group in May 2002 called upon
the Forest Service to reject more mining there.
2. Salt Lake Tribune Blasts Owyhee Initiative (ID)
Salt Lake Tribune
Thursday, June 19, 2003
Owyhee County, Idaho, is blessed with a musical name and spectacular
river canyons. It is also cattle country. Some environmental activists
and cattlemen are at work on a plan that would trade wilderness
designation on federal lands for assurances that ranchers could
keep or trade or sell their grazing allotments. That would be a
sound basis for compromise were it not for the fact that it loses
sight of what wilderness is about.
As such, this sort of plan would set a dangerous precedent for other
states, particularly Utah, to use in settling its political battles
over federal wilderness designation.
The federal Wilderness Act of 1964 defines wilderness as "an
area where the earth and its community of life are untrammeled by
man, where man himself is a visitor who does not remain." Primitive
is a good synonym. Untouched is another. These places should be
protected because, as humans have come to dominate most of the land
and ecosystems in the United States, wilderness is both a rarity
and sanctuary.
Domesticated cattle are not a wild or native species in Owyhee County.
They are put there by humans as a food crop. They are not about
wilderness. Nevertheless, the Wilderness Act provides that grazing
shall be permitted to continue in wilderness areas where it is already
established. However, the law gives the Bureau of Land Management,
in this case, power to determine how much grazing should be allowed
on the land.
That's the rub in Owyhee County, where ranchers are worried that
if wilderness designation occurs, the BLM will reduce grazing allotments.
So, in exchange for their support for Congress designating 400,000
acres of federal wilderness in Owyhee County, the ranchers would
get a new committee that would review the BLM's grazing decisions.
This Scientific Review Team would be appointed by the University
of Idaho.
This undoubtedly would give ranchers and range experts in Idaho
greater influence over federal grazing policy on Owyhee wilderness
lands. That is a mistake for two reasons. First, the BLM is in the
range-management business -- that is its historic role -- and presumably
has the expertise to do the job. Second, no review committee should
give Idaho interests special influence over management policy on
national lands.
The point of any wilderness designation should be to preserve natural
ecosystems. The Owyhee proposal gets high marks for taking a creative
approach to an intractable political impasse, but it goes too far
in compromising essential wilderness values.
As such, this sort of plan would set a dangerous precedent for other
states, particularly Utah, to use in settling its political battles
over federal wilderness designation.
© Copyright 2003, The Salt Lake Tribune.
For More Information:
Salt Lake Tribune -
http://www.sltrib.com/2003/Jun/06172003/utah/66811.asp
3. Forest Service opts to use helicopters for dam repair in Wilderness
(MT)
From the Missoulian, June 1, 2003:
HAMILTON - The Canyon Creek Irrigation District would be able to
use helicopters to transport equipment to repair two dams located
in the Selway-Bitterroot Wilderness Area under a proposal announced
this week by the Forest Service.
Bitterroot National Forest Supervisor Dave Bull released the final
environmental impact statement for the Canyon Lake and Wyant Lake
dam projects. The dams, located about eight miles west of Hamilton,
need work to repair hazardous conditions, he said. Because they
are in the wilderness area, the dams are normally off-limits to
motorized vehicles. The irrigation district needs special permission
from the Forest Service to gain motorized access to the dams.
For more information:
Missoulian -
http://www.missoulian.com/articles/2003/06/01/news/mtregional/news08.txt
Ravalli Republic –
http://www.ravallinews.com/archives/index.inn?loc=detail&doc=/2003/May/28-2681-news3.txt
4. Comments result in improved fire plan for the Seney National
Wildlife Refuge, MI
From Northwoods Wilderness Recovery:
The Seney National Wildlife Refuge recently completed a second Fire
Management Plan draft Environmental Assessment (EA) for the 100,000
acre Refuge, located in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula. Due to
comments by NWR, Heartwood, Wilderness Watch, and others last year,
the first EA was dropped. The 2003 draft EA is a vast improvement
over the original. Plans to log up to 3,000 acres was reduced to
40 acres of thinning to lower fire danger for the Village of Germfask.
Plans for prescribed burns are much more detailed and a separate
Wilderness fire management plan will be drafted at a later date.
Ecosystems within the refuge are largely fire-dependent, and many
of the Sedge marshes, which species such as the Yellow Rail depends
on for habitat, are becoming overgrown with brush, resulting in
the decline of Rail numbers.
5. Gila Ranchers Trespass Cattle on Wilderness, Harming Endangered
Fish and Wildlife
From Forest Guardians:
SANTA FE, NM — The Southwest's most notorious ranchers have
illegally released nearly 200 cattle into the Gila and Aldo Leopold
Wilderness areas and Apache National Forest within the past few
weeks and are currently defying Forest Service requests to remove
the illegal cattle. According to Forest Service records, Kit, Sherry,
and Alvin Laney, former grazing permittees on the Diamond Bar and
Laney allotments, unlawfully placed approximately 150 cows on the
Diamond Bar allotment and 39 cows on the Laney allotment in the
last two to six weeks…
Read more at:
http://www.fguardians.org/news/pr030603.html
News stories:
San Francisco Chronicle:
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/news/archive/2003/06/04/state2009EDT7452.DTL&type=printable
Albuquerque Journal:
http://mg9889126@www.abqjournal.com/news/45747news06-05-03.htm
6. Wilderness travelers often rely more on technology than on
skills
The following news story provides some interesting insight into
the unique challenges new technology poses for Wilderness protection
and stewardship.
BY SAM COOK
Knight Ridder Newspapers
DULUTH, Minn. - (KRT) - Gary Robinson had been on the trail for
several days as a wilderness ranger when he came across a father
and his son. They were well back in the million-acre Boundary Waters
Canoe Area Wilderness, and the 16-year-old son had a gaping wound
in the palm of his hand. The young man had fallen on a rock and
cut a hole in his palm about the size of a quarter," said Robinson,
who has spent 24 years as a wilderness ranger in Minnesota's canoe
country. What happened next illustrates the dilemma that faces those
who manage wilderness areas: The father wanted his son immediately
flown out of the Boundary Waters…
© 2003, Duluth News Tribune (Duluth, Minn.).
Read more at:
http://www.bayarea.com/mld/mercurynews/sports/6062778.htm
7. Natural fires allowed to burn in Frank Church – River of
No Return Wilderness, ID
Payette National Forest News Release
June 12, 2003
McCall, ID - Two lightning-ignited fires approximately 2.5 miles
upstream of Lantzbar Guard Station on the Main Salmon River are
being managed by the Payette National Forest under Wildland Fire
Use policies. The two fires are located in the Frank Church - River
of No Return Wilderness. Both fires ignited June 6 and both are
less than one-third of an acre in size. The fires were reported
to Boise Flight Service and the information was then passed to the
Payette National Forest.
The Payette National Forest is managing the two fires under Wildland
Fire Use policies and according to policy and guidance provided
in the National Fire Plan and the Central Idaho Wilderness Act.
Krassel District Ranger Quinn Carver emphasized the value of letting
the fires take their natural course in the wilderness.
"This is doing good things for the environment in a large area
where there are not communities or people at risk," Carver
said….
For
additional information, contact Boyd Hartwig at (208) 634-0784
* Action Alerts*
1. Wilderness 101 – Republican Leaders in Alaska look to
redefine Wilderness to condone motorized use in Denali. Send them
your letters!
Overview: In June, Alaskan state Republican leaders sent a to the
National Park Service (see below) in opposition to the Denali Backcountry
Plan. The letter focuses its vitriol on motorized access restrictions
that the authors complain are "based on immaterial aesthetic
values, such as solitude." However, the wilderness character
that ANILCA and the Wilderness Act strive to protect is not limited
to the physical aspects of wilderness, such as the plants, animals,
and geology, but encompasses equally important, less-tangible aspects,
including solitude, adventure, and risk. As Howard Zahniser, author
of the Wilderness Act wrote: "We deeply need the humility to
know ourselves as the dependent members of a great community of
life…Without the gadgets, the inventions…without these
distractions, to know wilderness is to know profound humility, to
recognize one’s littleness, to sense dependence and interdependence,
indebtedness, and responsibility."
Congress recognized wilderness as a resource and unmotorized solitude
as an integral part of that resource. Though ANILCA permits limited
motorized access to traditional activities in wilderness, it does
not allow open access for recreational uses. Sadly, it appears that
the legislators would rather appease a few than protect one of the
public’s most magnificent wildernesses – despite the fact
that in southcentral Alaska alone 32.7 million acres out of a total
of 34.4 million acres, over 95% of the state and federal lands,
are open to recreational snowmachine use. (ADNR report 1996).
Speak up for wilderness character! Send a brief letter to the editor
of the Fairbanks Daily News Miner (http:/www.news-miner.com)
and/or Anchorage Daily News (http:/www.adn.com).
Article:
Legislative Leaders Take Stand For Park Access - Letter of Protest
Sent to National Parks Service Over Restricted Denali Access
(JUNEAU) - Earlier this week Senate President Gene Therriault (R-North
Pole) and House Speaker Pete Kott (R-Eagle River) sent a letter
to the National Parks Service protesting parts of their 2003 "Back
Country Management Plan, which would restrict access to areas of
the Denali National Forrest by boat, plane or snowmachine.
The letter, which was sent to Assistant Interior Secretary Craig
Manson, states that the draft backcountry plan limits access based
on an "undefined aesthetic value," and in complete contradiction
of the letter and spirit of the Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation
Act (ANILCA), which was enacted to protect traditional park access
rights to Alaskans. Therriault said he recognizes and applauds the
effort in the draft plan to mange the resources of the park, but
that plan too closely resembles plans used for parks outside of
Alaska, that are not subject to ANILCA.
"Under ANILCA the only time park access may be restricted is
when the Secretary of Interior determines that such access would
be detrimental to the resources," said Therriault. "If
the proposed closures are permitted it will set a terrible precedent
for future closures based on discreet user group complaints."
Kott said that the plan appears to impermissibly treat "feelings"
as "resources" and proposes major access closures to protect
the feelings of certain classes of park visitors.
"This draft plan clearly violates particular features of ANILCA,"
said Kott. "It would eviscerate the traditional access guarantees
that are the very core of the compromises codified in that Act."
Both leaders agree that allowing this access restriction to make
it to the final plan would put access provisions of ANILCA in serious
jeopardy. Therriault said that he and other members of the Legislature
will be following this issue closely over the interim and will fight
hard to protect the traditional access right guaranteed to Alaskans
under ANILCA.
This release can be found at:
http://www.akrepublicans.org/therriault/23/news/ther2003060501p.php
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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