Fair Fares and Ox Peckers

— By Jerry Sutherland

Jerry Sutherland serves as the statewide environmental representative for Oregon to the Steens Mountain Advisory Council (SMAC). The SMAC is comprised of different interest groups, including private property owners [who is represented by the owner of the Steens Mountain Running Camp] and proponents of off-road vehicle use, and was set up to advise the Bureau of Land Management in its management of the Steens Mountain Wilderness. Jerry’s work with the SMAC inspired the following piece, which asks us to review the nature of our motives for advocating Wilderness protection.

There is a lot of room on the Wilderness Train, enough seats and compartments to house the various girths of special interest and opinion. This is because Wilderness designation requires the support of many diverse groups and individuals. No one has the power to drive this train alone. It is inevitable that each group be motivated by one particular motivation or special use of wilderness. For example, some want Wilderness protected from logging and development so that non-motorized recreationists can enjoy them. Some want huge tracts of contiguous undeveloped lands to enable migrations of key species such as grizzlies. Some want to use Wilderness to eliminate grazing on public lands, while others want places to rejuvenate their connection to the earth. Some just want to know there are still wild places to go, free of civilized cacaphony, that can provide solitude. Some want to protect the earth from mining and other gross geophysical carnage. The list is long.

All of these are admirable objectives, and each of their proponents are welcome on the Wilderness Train. But they have to be willing to pay the conductor when he comes around to collect the fare. The payment expected is for them to stand up for ALL Wilderness characteristics and not just the ones they like, and to refrain from their favorite use of Wilderness if it negatively impacts any Wilderness characteristic. Those who don’t pay this fare are robbing the National Wilderness Preservation Sytem Train and cheating the other passengers. Their actions result in a kind of half Wilderness, a place that embodies certain charcteristics while abandoning others.

This point is illustrated in a recent editorial concerning Wilderness designation in Oregon’s Eugene Register Guard (April 28, 2002). At first glance, the author’s definition of Wilderness seems attractive:

"Under the 1964 Wilderness Act, Congress can protect undeveloped public lands in their natural state - no roads, no motorized vehicles, no logging, no mining. At the time, wilderness areas were seen primarily as a preserve for backcountry recreation. In the final decades of the 20th century, appreciation of their value as sources of clean water, as wildlife habitat and as ecological preserves has steadily grown."

All of us would like to see more public lands fit this description. The problem is that businesses, operating large events such as the Steens Mountain Running Camp would fit in nicely. The definition of "wilderness character" is found in Section 2 (c) of the Wilderness Act. While the Register Guard editorial mentions certain parts of the definition, such as natural state, ecological features, and non-development characteristics, it leaves out solitude, unconfined and primitive recreation, and being untrammeled by man. The editorial also skips mentioning the prohibition of commercial use found in Section 4 (c). Yet these unmentioned characteristics are what distinguish Wilderness from other designations. They are the heart and soul of the Wilderness Act, and excluding them neatly guts the true intent of preserving our last wild places.

Ox peckers, Shark suckers, and Tapeworms

For those of you who are biologists, we can discuss this in terms of symbiotic relationships. Wilderness would be the host and each of those working to ensure preservation would be symbionts. The question is whether the relationship of each symbiont to the host is mutual, commensal, or parasitic.

In mutual symbiosis both host and symbiont gain from the relationship. My favorite symbiont is the yellow-billed ox pecker. In addition to feeding on ticks and other irritating insects for their ungulate hosts, the ox peckers signal the presence of predators. Wilderness advocates should strive to live up to the standards set by ox peckers and defend the Wilderness characteristics of each member of the National Wilderness Preservation System.

Commensal symbiosis benefits the symbiont but has no effect on the host. One of the few things I remember from my biology classes is the image of shark suckers [remoras] latching onto sharks and rays. We can put up with a few shark suckers in the Wilderness sea. Those who help with passage of wilderness designations and do no harm during the implementation phase fit here.

Now we come to parasitic symbiosis. Here, the symbiont damages the host, like tapeworms infecting the intestinal tracts of our canine friends (if one of those monster maggots pictured in magazines at my vet’s office ever got into my dog Bandit I would use any method available to eradicate it). Those who claim to be ‘pro-Wilderness’ but are willing to sacrifice some wilderness characteristics to promote their own, or want their favorite use to continue even if it degrades wilderness characteristics, fit here.

In summary, those who want the appellation of "Wilderness advocate" need to pay a fair fare to ride the Wilderness Train and strive to be Wilderness ox peckers. It is not only possible, but desirable to form a relationship with Wilderness that is mutually beneficial. This can be accomplished by following the true purpose of the Wilderness Act by promoting and defending all Wilderness characteristics equally.

— By Dave Campbell

In 1971, five men set about changing Forest Service history. The idea started with Bill Worf, Regional Director for Recreation, Wilderness, and Lands, and Bud Moore, Regional Director for Fire Management, who believed that better forest health could be achieved by restoring natural fire to the landscape. This supposition marked a sharp departure from current land management practices, which held that fire suppression was essential for forest health. Seeking to use Wilderness to test their theory, Worf and Moore enlisted Orville Daniels, Forest Supervisor of the Bitterroot National Forest. With the help of fire researcher Bob Mutch and National Forest System employee Dave Aldrich, they submitted a fire plan to the Chief of the Forest Service for approval. The Whitecap Fire Management Plan was approved in 1972, giving Worf, Moore, Daniels, Mutch, and Aldrich the green light to put their theory to the test.

Their work came none too soon. The day after the approval of the plan, a lightning strike in Bad Luck Creek in the Selway-Bitterroot Wilderness provided the first prescribed natural fire in Forest Service history. The Bad Luck fire was symbolic, but the real test came a year later when the Fitz Creek fire crossed the Wilderness boundary and burned unhindered for 40 days.

Today, natural fire is a tradition in the Selway-Bitterroot Wilderness. To commemorate the 30th anniversary of this sea-change in fire management, Worf, Moore, Daniels, Mutch, and Aldrich hiked nine miles into the Selway-Bitterroot Wilderness, returning the spot where they first camped in 1972. They were joined by Regional Forester Brad Powell, Bitterroot Forest Supervisor Dave Bull, and several other people interested in the unique perspectives offered by these pioneers of Wilderness fire management. In discussions held over two days, it quickly became apparent to the group gathered around the campfire that the men’s passion for wilderness and the natural role of fire burns as fiercely today as it did 30 years ago.

On the third day, the group hiked out of the Wilderness to Paradise guard station. A large group of people, including long-term Wilderness advocate Doris Milner, had gathered at the station to celebrate the unique success of the Selway-Bitterroot. Milner joined Worf, Moore, Daniels, Mutch, and Aldrich in addressing the crowd, sharing their thoughts about the past thirty years and their ideas for fire management in the future. Listening to the speakers, it became apparent that while they celebrated past successes, they were clearly focused on the future for Wilderness and restoring fire to the landscape. For those of us who carry on the tradition of Wilderness fire, it was truly an inspirational gathering and a rare opportunity to learn from Wilderness pioneers.