Well Trammeled – Equestrian recreation threatens to erode Illinois’ Wilderness

—By Sam Sterns

Sam Stearns is public education coordinator for the Friends of Bell Smith Springs. He was born and raised in south Illinois and based this article on his many years of experience as an advocate for the Shawnee National Forest.

Many people are not aware that the state of Illinois has Wilderness. They are not familiar with the quiet beauty of the Shawnee National Forest in the southern part of the state, ten percent of which is congressionally designated Wilderness. With its gentle topography, meandering streams, diverse vegetation, and spectacular rock formations, the Shawnee can be a quiet paradise for those who seek respite from modern society. For decades, hikers, hunters, horseback riders, and other nature lovers have enjoyed the Wilderness without regulation or much noticeable negative impact. Yet all this is changing with the growth of commercial horse operations that specialize in guided rides into the Wilderness.

About fifteen years ago commercial developers associated with the horse campground industry discovered southern Illinois. The developers bought small tracts of land adjacent to scenic spots in the Shawnee National Forest and opened commercial horse campgrounds. To ensure their unlimited access, they quickly aligned with numerous all terrain vehicle (ATV) groups such as the Blue Ribbon Coalition.

Since then, the Wilderness has witnessed a steep increase in visitors. The 4,466-acre Lusk Creek Wilderness, for example, is surrounded by more than half a dozen horse campgrounds all advertising the same rides. Lacking regulation from the U.S. Forest Service, there is no limit on the number of riders a commercial operation can bring into the Wilderness. Recently, a representative for the commercial campgrounds stated that up to 2,000 riders a day use the trails.

The problem is further compounded by the lack of agency regulation concerning Wilderness trails. Riders are allowed to leave designated trails to criss-cross the land using a spider web of illegal user-created trails. These trails were cut with no thought to their effect on soil, water, vegetation, or wildlife. Some routes go straight up steep hillsides where they quickly begin to erode, sending silt into the streambed. Other trails go along, across, and within the stream itself. Colonies of rare plants are obliterated. As the trails inevitably turn into a rut too deep and dangerous for horses, another illegal trail is cut beside it, then another; so that soon a narrow horse trail becomes a wide corridor devoid of vegetation.

Other backcountry users are not alone in their alarm over the commercial industry’s degradation of the solitude and beauty of the Wilderness. The Illinois Department of Natural Resources and the Illinois Nature Preserves Commission have written scathing reviews of the situation. And though the Forest Service’s own scientists have documented and affirmed the damage, the agency’s bureaucrats choose to ignore the problem.

In 1999, Dr. Joe Glisson sued the Forest Service and won in an effort to get them to enforce their own nationwide regulations concerning commercial operations in National Forests and Wilderness areas. Pursuant to the law, the Forest Service was ordered to issue Special Use permits to commercial operations after conducting a full Environmental Assessment of their possible impacts. In cases where impacts are acute, such as Lusk Creek, the agency is required to preserve the area’s Wilderness character through group size limits and closures. Any commercial operation found doing business without a Special Use Permit was to be immediately cited for their violation of the law.

Sadly, little has changed. The Forest Service denies knowledge of any commercial use of the Shawnee despite myriad operations advertising trips in printed media and on their websites. Two years after the court order, none of the campgrounds have the required permits. The most popular destination for riders, Lusk Creek, lacks signs informing riders that horses are prohibited from this fragile stream. Large groups of riders can be observed on any weekend accessing the Shawnee from the private campgrounds, riding the illegal user-created trails. Six other Shawnee Wilderness Areas are similarly abused.

Commercial horse operations have repeatedly sought to reduce protection for the Shawnee. They have so far been unsuccessful in court. But de facto degradation and destruction continue. If the Forest Service continues to ignore the illegal activities that are occurring, the only option for citizens who love Illinois’ Wilderness will be to go back to court - asking once more that the agency simply do its job to protect the land.

— By Phil Knight

Phil Knight is the Native Forest Network's Yellowstone Area Representative, and director and co-founder of NFN's Last Refuge Campaign.

Motorized recreation is fast becoming one of the greatest threats facing America’s Wilderness. Whether the recreation occurs with a snowmobile, ATV, or dirt bike, new technologies make the machines lighter and more powerful, allowing them access to previously remote and inaccessible areas. Once deep in the backcountry, some users are crossing wilderness boundaries. The resulting damage of such "wreckreation" has been widely reported - heavily eroded trails and watersheds, pollution in the form of noise and exhaust, the spread of noxious weeds, and impacts on wildlife populations. While many people claim to be unaware of their trespass, managing agencies are encountering a growing number of riders who knowingly violate the law. Sadly, the vast majority of these wilderness trespassers are never caught - lacking money and manpower, agencies are unable to effectively monitor the boundaries to stop trespass before it occurs.

What is Being Done

In response to this threat, the Native Forest Network's Last Refuge Campaign, in conjunction with Sierra Club Grizzly Bear Ecosystems Project, has launched the Wild Trails Campaign to document the damage caused by motorized recreation on the Gallatin National Forest in Montana. We chose the Gallatin, which includes land in the Lee Metcalf and Absorka-Beartooth Wildernesses, because it shelters many rare and sensitive species, such as grizzly bears and wolverines, which are highly sensitive to motorized intrusion. It is our hope that documentation of this degradation and wilderness trespass will educate the public and pressure managing agencies to take action to stop these abuses.

Diverse strategies aimed at battling motorized trespass in wilderness nationwide are coming together on the Gallatin. Using field surveys and aerial photography, we are able to observe and document evidence of trespass, including tracks and erosion. Field monitoring takes place year round, from observing hunters in the fall to following the tracks of snowmobilers in mid-winter. We have packed out piles of trash, including bullet shells and shot-up targets, as well as observing rutted meadows and trampled, overused campsites. In addition, we have taken numerous pictures of ATV and snowmobile tracks deep inside both wilderness boundaries.

Once this information is collected, we will know where the worst abuse is occurring on the Gallatin, and what boundary areas are in immediate need of non-motorized buffer zones or closures. We process our information with the help of a standardized set of forms and codes for recording photographs, GPS points, trail and road numbers, types and severity of damage, and habitat types. All this information is being entered in a comprehensive database, which will be linked to maps and digital photographs before being presented to both the general public and the Forest Service.
Native Forest Network and the Sierra Club are reaching out to the public and other conservation organizations like Wilderness Watch who care about the continued integrity of the nation’s wilderness. If enough public pressure and evidence of abuse is presented to the Forest Service and other managing agencies, we believe that motorized "wreckreation" in wilderness can come to an end.

Help Your Favorite Wilderness

Wilderness needs your help! Start your own monitoring project to document ATV and snowmobile impacts in your area. Please visit http://grizzly.sierraclub.org/wildtrails.htm to download copies of our specialized monitoring forms and see photographs of some of the most egregious ATV damage we have found.

If you wish to join our efforts, or have questions or comments, contact me at pknight@wildrockies.org or at the contact information listed below. Please help us end motorized wreckreation on our fragile public lands!

Phil Knight
Native Forest Network
PO Box 6151
Bozeman, MT 59771-6151
(406) 586-3885
pknight@wildrockies.org

— By Melissa Walker

Melissa Walker is an author and a board member of Wilderness Watch. Her newest book “On Wilderness Time” was published in 2002.

Speak and listen to the sounds of their names: Tybee, Wassaw, Ossabaw, St. Catherines, Blackbeard, Sapelo, Wolf, Egg, Little Saint Simons, Saint Simons, Sea, Little Cumberland, and finally Cumberland. Wood storks soaring from north to south along the Georgia coast from Savannah to the Florida line pass high above these barrier islands with little hope of finding a truly hospitable nesting ground. Much of the shoreline has been altered so severely that it is only suitable for habitation by humans. Loggerhead turtles that come ashore to lay their eggs are confused by lights on the shore; the threatened piping plover and other birds that nest in the dunes have been eliminated from breeding grounds by endless condominium developments; shrimp, crab, and a myriad other small creatures are faced with shrinking marshes to serve as their nurseries.

The habitat required for all these creatures to reproduce and care for their young is becoming increasingly rare. Cumberland Island, protected as a National Seashore with some 9,800 acres of designated wilderness, is one of those rare places. Yet even wild Cumberland is imperiled, and insuring its wilderness character for future generations will require the enduring commitment of those individuals and organizations who understand and value the qualities that make a wilderness experience so sought after and so increasingly difficult to find.

Imagine that you have planned a solitary wilderness retreat on Cumberland Island. You have reserved a campsite at Yankee Paradise for two nights and another in Brickhill Bluff on the north end of the island for another three nights. You arrive in St. Mary’s, Georgia, where you enjoy ice tea on a balcony restaurant overlooking the river and a fleet of shrimp boats before having a fish dinner on an outdoor patio nearby. You walk the streets of this sleepy town and join the raucous locals at the bar of the Riverview Hotel where you are spending the night. The next morning you check your backpack to make sure you have packed the essentials—insect repellent, tweezers for removing ticks, sunscreen, a snakebite kit--for five days on the island. Money will be of no use, as there is nothing to buy. There will be no need for pepper spray or cold weather gear.

At breakfast you finish reading John McPhee’s account of his visit to Cumberland with the Charles Frazer who developed Hilton Head Island in the late fifties and sixties. Frazer acquired three thousand acres of Cumberland in 1968 with the intention of building an elaborate resort called Cumberland Oaks that included not only luxury homes, but also an aerial gondola to carry guests from the mainland, or so McPhee claims. Island residents and environmentalists intervened and thwarted Frazer’s schemes. In the end, he sold his stake in Cumberland to the National Park Foundation, and soon after other property owners on the island sold their land as well. In 1972 the island became a National Seashore. What McPhee and even David Brower could not foresee was that in 1982 Congress would establish the Cumberland Island Wilderness, placing much of the island under the protection of the Wilderness Act of 1964.

Musing about how much has changed since Cumberland was designated a wilderness, you board the ferry with families minding small children, birders, lovers, and loners like yourself. As the ferry approaches the island, you see no sign of human habitation. The houses of the few residents are not visible from the shore. You imagine that you are approaching a pristine wilderness. In 1971 McPhee was concerned that the Park Service would develop the island, much as it has Yosemite Valley. Neither he nor Brower had any notion that a wilderness designation would radically change the prognosis for this enchanted place.

The legal mandate of the September 8, 1982 legislation was clear: "The wilderness is to be managed according to the Wilderness Act." In the twenty years since designation, however, officials of the Park Service have not only avoided meeting their responsibilities as stewards of this exceptional island ecosystem, they have flagrantly violated the law they are responsible for implementing. Wilderness Watch began its effort to bring the management of Cumberland into compliance with the law in the fall of 1997, when our representative attended a three-day meeting on the island and established communication with high-ranking officials in the Park Service. From then until now these officials have indicated an intention to abide by the Wilderness Act while continuing to do the opposite.

Among the violations of the Act that the Park Service has engaged in, authorized, or tolerated, are two that place the entire wilderness system in jeopardy. Officials of the Park Service have issued permits to a commercial hotel on the island to take their guests through the wilderness in trucks, and equally shocking, they conduct Park Service bus tours through the wilderness as well.

On February 7, 2002, Wilderness Watch took the lead in filing suit in federal court challenging the National Park Service’s decision to authorize and conduct motorized tours in the Cumberland Island Wilderness. Joining us in the suit are Defenders of Wild Cumberland (DWC) and Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER). The suit calls for an end to the illegal motorized tours through the wilderness conducted twice daily by the Greyfield Inn, a private corporation, and at regular intervals by the Park Service itself.

Failure to challenge this flagrant violation of the law could open the door to further disregard of the legal structures that are the only protections afforded our wild places. On the other hand, a successful legal court challenge could have positive repercussions throughout the federal agencies that are responsible for managing wilderness.

Cumberland Island, the largest undeveloped barrier island on the east coast, has the potential of being restored to a truly wild state. The end of these disruptive and illegal tours will not be the end of the battle for wild Cumberland, but it will be a very important step in the eternal struggle between those who want to use and abuse the wild as they choose and those who want to safeguard its wonders. Until the sea reclaims this fragile web of life, there will be a need for people to ward off the consequences of timidity and negligence. Wilderness Watch intends to be part of that future.

— By Michael McCloskey

Mike McCloskey is the President of the Federation of Western Outdoor Clubs. He is a former Chairman and Executive Director of the Sierra Club and has worked on wilderness issues for forty years. He is the author of the first World Wilderness Survey. This article was adapted from a speech presented at the Environmental Law Conference in Eugene, Oregon in March 2002.

When most people think of factors that threaten Wilderness, they envision traditional dangers such as mining, oil and gas exploration, commercial outfitting, and the whims of conservative politicians. However, the nation’s Wilderness faces other threats, many of which arise from unexpected sources.

One of these threats is the mismanagement of Wilderness by the four administering agencies, the U.S. Forest Service, Bureau of Land Management, National Park Service, and Fish and Wildlife Service, whose duty it is to manage our designated Wilderness to preserve its primitive condition. Another threat is the heavy-handed management tactics promoted by some conservation biologists, who often view Wilderness as an area that needs human manipulation to be "natural." And lastly, the public must now listen to academics that no longer view the very concept of Wilderness as being politically correct. Viewed together, these elements create an unexpected challenge for those who work to keep Wilderness wild and free.

It would almost seem as if Wilderness has no friends anymore besides the general public. In a national survey conducted by the Southern Forest Experiment Station, 52 percent stated that the government has not reserved enough land for wilderness preservation. The overwhelming majority recognized the importance of wilderness areas for wildlife, water and air quality, and opportunities for quiet solitude. In a broad sense, the Wilderness system has never been more popular and the federal structure to protect it has never been larger. Unfortunately, we can take little comfort from that. Internal threats from intellectuals and land managers may eventually "poison the well" of public opinion, leaving few advocates for our last wild places.

Attitudes of Administrators

Management guidelines for the four federal agencies that manage Wilderness reflect a desire to actively manipulate ecosystems in designated Wilderness. Though the Wilderness Act promotes a "hands off" policy with regard to the flora and fauna in such areas, they think nature needs their help. They claim that they find a mandate in the Wilderness Act "to restore natural conditions," though this reflects a misinterpretation of the law. The controlling theme in that Act is that Wilderness should be "untrammeled," that is, be free of human control.

Sadly, the agencies’ vision of Wilderness is all about control. At agency conferences on Wilderness, many requests are made for leeway to burn and manipulate vegetation. Such manipulation would destroy the value Wilderness has as a reference benchmark for measuring ecosystem trends.

However, agency ambitions go well beyond merely restoring some appropriate array of vegetative types. Spurred on by Wilderness management texts that actively urge managers to be the architects of their ecosystems, some administrators are demanding the power to decide which species, ecosystems or community mosaics should exist in Wilderness.

One way in which agencies seek to control Wilderness is through fire. Rather than allowing wild fires to begin and burn unhindered, they want to use planned ignitions, or prescribed fires, as a tool to manipulate the landscape. Such fires would be used not only to get rid of accumulations of fuel caused by past practices of suppressing fire unnaturally, but also to maintain or promote desired mosaics of vegetation. They would maintain patches of habitat desired by given animals‚ similar to those once produced naturally.

But far from being natural, the burned areas would be intensively planned and managed. Vegetation would only grow where agencies wanted it, and would be of the type they planned, and only for the duration they deemed proper. Nature would be under their control‚and could not, under any stretch of the imagination, be seen as "untrammeled." In addition, agencies would need an infrastructure to achieve their work, namely access roads, herbicides, machinery, and selective logging to get the patterns they envision. This new management system would also be used to eradicate so-called exotic species‚ even though such programs in the past have often done more harm than good.

Research has shown that some once exotic species have become naturalized. Indeed, species are migrating into new ranges all of the time. Some managers want greater leeway to customize their prescriptions without having to follow the standard format of the Wilderness Act. Sometimes this is justified under the rubric of "adaptive management," which seems to call for letting local managers‚ under the guise of "science," be a law unto themselves.

But is this "good science"? The collapse of the "equilibrium theory" of nature has left us with the notion that "nature is a shifting mosaic and is essentially in flux." Under the now prevailing "chaos theory," chance disturbances and slight changes in climate can trigger major changes in vegetation and wildlife. The fragmentation of ecosystems may inevitably cause species to die out because their habitat is no longer large enough. Moreover, climate change may already be under way, and may cause habitats to move northward and upward and induce changes that cannot be predicted or stopped.

Instead of trying to impose our ideas on the landscape, wilderness should be left alone. Nature should be allowed to find its own way unaided. Natural processes, such as they now are‚ should be given their head. Ponds should be allowed to fill in, lightning fires should be allowed to create new openings, and the cycles of forest succession should be allowed to operate, or not operate, as they choose.

Conservation Biologists

While many conservation biologists have contributed valuable work to the preservation of Wilderness, some are not comfortable with the existing wilderness system. Instead of a system that represents wild places, they want a system that represents varied ecosystems. They see the existing system as severely flawed; they feel it is comprised of units of the wrong type, in the wrong places, that are often not large enough or close enough together. They do not accept the system on its own terms‚ as a series of wild places ideal for backpacking and communing with nature.

But they do want to use units of the system as building blocks for new mega-reserves that they would like to bring into existence. They would add timberlands, lowlands, farm lands, and settled lands in the regions around Wilderness to create new ecosystem reserves. Though this ecosystem approach to Wilderness preservation has merits, it may ultimately result in a lowering of standards for Wilderness management overall. Instead of raising the management standards of the new areas to meet those placed on Wilderness, administrators are likely to lower restrictions in both areas to garner public support. Therefore, while these preserves will enjoy some protection, they will ultimately undercut the rigorous guidelines essential to meaningful habitat preservation.

Struggle within the scientific community provides fodder for critics who wish to see Wilderness dismantled. Powerful Republican congressmen from the west believe these differences justify "sunsetting the Wilderness Act" if a common understanding cannot be ironed out over the next decade.

Some conservation biologists would also weaken the legal formulas currently protecting Wilderness. They would allow extensive manipulation‚ as the agency managers want‚ as well as snowmobiles and the cutting of firewood. This "wish list" by some biologists exposes their desire to change the Wilderness Act and re-open it to debate. However, conservation biologists are not likely to attract the support they need in addressing these new challenges if they recklessly endanger the measures of protection that we have already achieved.

Critiques From Academia

A whole literature has unfolded in parts of academia over the past dozen years which glorifies in sneering at the idea of Wilderness. It proudly proclaims that there is no such thing - every part of the earth is trammeled and compromised. Wilderness is an illusion, they aver.

However, the 106 million acres in the federal system are real, and embody a collection of places that have suffered the least from modification or human impact. The Wilderness Act does not presuppose that areas to which it extends protection are pristine. Accordingly, it makes no difference whether they were once changed by human agency. They are areas which "generally appear to have been affected primarily by the forces of nature, with the imprint of man’s work substantially unnoticeable."

Some in academia also seem to be reacting to a perception that much of the environmental movement ignores the rest of the earth while it is preoccupied with wildness. There may be those with such preoccupations, but on the whole the environmental movement has not ignored the rest of the earth and the stresses applied to it. Groups such as the Sierra Club address environmental problems across the board, but they do not apologize for trying to save remnants of nature. Those in academia who have labored under such misperceptions should try to become better scholars.

Conclusion

In conclusion, it is ironic that at a time when Wilderness has never enjoyed more popular support, it is beset by doubters from many quarters, including academics, managers, and biologists, as well as commercial interests and western conservatives.

Perhaps its very success creates critics. However, we should not be complacent that no one will listen and all will be well. We need more people to answer back and to defend the foundations of this very successful system.