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One Man's Recreation Is Another's Desecration
—
By T.H.
Watkins
T.H.
Watkins, the former editor of Wilderness magazine, is the Wallace
Stegner Distinguished Professor of Western American Studies at Montana
State University and the author, most recently, of "Natural
America" (National Geographic Society).
"It
would promise us a more serene and confident future," my old
friend and mentor, the novelist and historian Wallace Stegner, wrote
nearly 20 years ago, "if, at the start of our sixth century
of residence in America, we began to listen to the land, and hear
what it says, and know what it can and cannot do."
We are still not listening. In spite of a century that has seen
environmentalism rise from the status of a cult to that of a social
and political phenomenon that even the present Congress admits it
can ignore only at its peril, too many people apparently remain
persuaded at some elemental level that it is less the needs of the
land we must honor than our own desire to use it, whether it is
for the production of timber, gas, oil, gold, forage for livestock
and other commercial resources or just for the simple joy of recreation.
Consider mountaineers and rock climbers, probably among the most
fervent environmentalists in the country. This past summer, the
U.S. Forest Service decided to ban the use of pitons and other metal
anchors and bolts by climbers in the designated wilderness areas
of the National Forest system. To justify its decision, the service
cited the Wilderness Act of 1964 and its prohibition against any
permanent human-made artifacts in designated wilderness. The announcement
kicked up an immediate ruckus. Climbers argued that they are among
the most benign of all recreationists in the wild, that anchors
and bolts are minor intrusions, at worst, and that to use the Wilderness
Act to deny them the safety of permanent devices would be nit-picking
with potentially dangerous consequences.
The question threw most major conservation organizations into a
tizzy of debate. Should they support the Forest Service decision
or risk the wrath of one of their strongest constituencies? After
much discussion, the Wilderness Society strengthened its conviction
that such devices were to be used only under special circumstances
and with strict regulation. The Sierra Club, in its own time-honored
fashion, put together a task force to study the matter.
Meanwhile, after the surge of anger from mountaineers supported
by the outdoor goods industry--with sales of about $4.7 billion
a year--the Forest Service temporarily caved in on the question.
They postponed the ban for a year (though giving it an experimental
try in the Sawtooth Wilderness of Idaho).
Too bad. The danger to climbers may be real if they are denied the
use of permanent devices, but I still think the agency's reading
of the law was correct. Quite aside from the legality of its position,
however, the Forest Service was proposing an idea that is appropriate
in an age when we should be concentrating more of our efforts on
protecting the wild than on making the human use of it convenient
or even safe. We can no longer afford--if we ever could--the luxury
of insouciance when it comes to the protection of the natural world,
and most especially the wildest and least corrupted portions of
that world. That means no favoritism for mountain climbers, no matter
how good their environmentalist credentials.
As the debate over the use of climbing devices in wilderness areas
suggests, there is a paradox embedded in the history of the environmental
movement. The movement has done a fine job of rising up on its hind
legs to protest destruction--the indiscriminate logging of old-growth
forest, overgrazing, agricultural pollution, riparian degradation,
ground water poisoning from mining waste and the like. But it also
has contributed to the presence of millions of human beings who,
like the rock climbers and mountaineers, individually may feel that
they are--and may well be--fervent lovers of the natural world,
but now are in danger of loving it to death, to borrow from historian
Roderick Nash.
The problem is an old one. During and after the Department of the
Interior's second National Park Conference, in 1912, the main topic
of discussion was whether automobiles should be allowed to enter
the parks. The Sierra Club took the side of the automobile enthusiasts.
"We hope they will be able to come in when the time comes,"
Sierra Club spokesman William Colby remarked, "because we think
the automobile adds a great zest to travel and we are primarily
interested in the increase of travel to these parks."
The automobilists won, and with the automobiles came people, more
and more people. All the better, said Stephen Mather, who served
as the first director of the National Park Service from 1916 to
1929. The more people, the more pressure there would be for Congress
to give the service enough money to manage and expand the park system.
He began a massive constituency-building publicity campaign that
became part of the Park Service's institutional dynamic, expressed
most dramatically after World War II, when the service launched
its ambitious 20-year "Mission 66" program, designed to
make the national parks more visitor-friendly than ever. It succeeded.
By the middle of the 1990s, the parks, monuments and recreation
areas of the National Park System were recording more than 172 million
recreation visits a year--more than twice the 80 million "Mission
66" had been designed to satisfy and an astonishing increase
even given national population growth.
In the same postwar era, the Forest Service gave itself over to
a spectacular timber-sales program that overwhelmed all other uses
of the national forests, including recreation. But eventually, even
when billions of board feet were being clear-cut from the forests
every year, recreation became increasingly important and the Forest
Service was soon promoting it almost as avidly as did the Park Service.
By the middle of the 1990s, the Forest Service was recording more
than 800 million recreation visits every year, which is more than
four times as many as the Park System. The Bureau of Land Management
had nearly 60 million annual visits on its own share of the federal
estate by then, while the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service tallied
nearly 30 million visits to its national wildlife refuges.
For the most part, the environmental community went along for the
recreation ride. Indeed, one of the most compelling arguments environmentalists
used to persuade the Congress to pass the Wilderness Act of 1964
was that it would provide Americans the opportunity to experience
nature in its least human-altered form, and if the act stated poetically
that each designated wilderness was to be kept forever as a place
"where man is a visitor who does not remain," it did not
say that a visitor couldn't return to experience untrammeled nature
again and again, as millions have. To this day, environmentalists
encourage visitation to areas that they would like to see added
to the National Wilderness Preservation System; they are caught
up in the same constituency-building syndrome that governed the
National Park Service for so many years.
As a consequence of this history, many recreationists claim an absolute
right to use the land, no matter what their form of recreation,
and the limits of the land are now being tested everywhere. Dirt
bikers, four-wheel-drive clubs, all-terrain vehicle enthusiasts
clamor for access to more and more areas, never mind the ecological
damage that too often results. More and more snowmobiles prowl the
groomed trails of Yellowstone National Park, disturbing wildlife
and corrupting the blue skies of the park with the stink and film
of their hydrocarbon mists. Motorboat owners demand access to the
wilderness waters of the Boundary Waters Canoe Area in Minnesota.
Jet-skiers stitch rooster-trails up and down otherwise protected
rivers and lakes. RVs the size of small office buildings clog roads
never meant to carry them. Campgrounds become urban slums every
summer--and piton-wielding mountaineers ornament ageless stone with
the jewelry of convenience.
But not all recreation is equal, not when it comes to the ecological
health of the land. Only the most confirmed misanthrope would argue
that human beings have no place in nature, or that they should not
be allowed to experience the recreational bounty of our national
lands. What I am arguing for is limits on how we experience that
bounty. Anywhere that a recreational activity is clearly damaging
land or wildlife, that activity should be prohibited or at least
rigidly controlled, whether it is a dirt biker's efforts to conquer
a mountain or too large a clot of New Age backpackers seeking the
Great Essence of natural communion in a wilderness dell. Federal
land managers should not be required to honor every vehicular fad,
nor should they be asked to secure the comfort of casual hikers
or the safety of daredevil climbers. In natural regions, as in public
libraries, we should not be allowed to do everything we can do merely
because we can do it.
Wilderness and the diversity of species it nurtures are everywhere
in peril, and it is long past time that the primary focus of management
is the needs of the land, and the consequence to someone's idea
of fun be damned. There is some evidence that the federal land-management
agencies are beginning to embrace the idea, at least in part. In
many parks, the National Park Service is trying to come to terms
with what it has wrought. On the valley floor of Yosemite, automobiles
ultimately will be prohibited and tourist facilities severely limited.
At Grand Canyon National Park, a light-rail system is being promoted
to reduce automobile traffic on the North Rim, and other non-automotive
transport systems are planned for Zion in Utah and Acadia in Maine.
The Park Service hopes management practices for about one-third
of the National Parks will be "remodeled" to limit the
impact of recreational use and preserve their natural values. For
its part, the U.S. Forest Service has proposed a moratorium on any
road construction in the roadless areas of the national forests,
and, even though some environmentalists complain that the moratorium
is not broad enough, the proposal still stands as an astonishing
reversal of more than 50 years of road building policy. Even the
Bureau of Land Management, not ordinarily considered a champion
of the wilderness ideal, has come up with a draft management plan
for the Clinton-established Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument
in Utah that centers management around the preservation of the natural,
"primitive" character of the land, rejecting paved roads,
concessions, RV hookups and all other detritus of industrial recreation.
Such efforts are imperfect and halting and subject to tremendous
political and economic pressures that can kill them, but they hint
at the beginning of a sea change in our institutional traditions.
If the agencies are encouraged and supported, they may even help
us learn a revolutionary new way of enjoying wildness.
Such as, for example, forsaking our infatuation with internal combustion
joy-riding, leaving our pitons and anchor bolts at home, and beginning
to move with quiet minds and gentle feet, listening finally to what
the land has to tell us.
© Copyright 1998 The Washington Post Company
Will Recreation Demand Define Wilderness?
—
By Susan Sater
Susan Sater
is the Pacific Northwest Regional Wilderness Program Manager for
the U.S. Forest Service.
In the recreation management dialogue
between agency wilderness staff and wilderness advocates, little
attention is given top the broad, biophysical resource issues that
affect both wilderness and the landscape that surrounds it. Yet
wilderness recreation use has a profound potential to shape the
role that wilderness plays in addressing such issues.
The fate of wildlife species facing extensive habitat loss is one
of the most urgent of these issues. Today, in the Pacific Northwest,
almost all of the major watersheds are home to salmon or bull trout
listed as threatened or endangered under the 1973 Endangered Species
Act. The grizzly bear is listed as a threatened species across its
entire range in the lower 48 states. In the past few weeks, a lone
gray wolf, ranging away from an experimental Idaho population of
this endangered species, has entered the Wallowa Mountains of eastern
Oregon, the first time a wolf has hunted in this area since 1936.
Very soon, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, under court order,
must address the proposed listing of Canada lynx across much of
the west. The wolverine, perhaps even more vulnerable than the Canada
lynx, is a FS sensitive species across all of its range.
Determining the most appropriate role of fire on public lands is
another of these large issues. Across most of the west, fire regimes
have been radically altered by urbanization, other land use, and
wildfire suppression.
What role will wilderness play in restoring these wildlife species
and fire regimes, given today’s recreation values for wilderness?
Agency wilderness policy emphasizes the role of wilderness as a
refuge for threatened species. The return of fire to as near its
natural role as possible is a top wilderness program priority. These
policy positions can lead to controversy and are most effective
if there is a strong base of support outside the agency, but they
are often met with resistance from recreationists. The resistance
appears to stem in part from the evolving role that wilderness plays
in meeting the demand for wildland recreation. In the snow-free
season, there is almost constant human occupation in some part of
almost every wilderness and in most parts of many wildernesses.
For example, in the Pacific Northwest, there are high lake basins
that see up to 25,000 people in a snow-free season of less than
10 weeks. It is not uncommon for popular areas and climbing routes
to see over 10,000 visitors only slightly longer summer seasons.
In our deliberations about how best to manage wilderness recreation,
we must address returning predators like the wolf and the grizzly
bear to historic population levels. As your stewards, we need to
know if there is a strong voice in support of accepting these large
and potentially threatening predators into the wilderness recreation
environment where they have been largely absent for decades. We
also need the participation of wilderness advocates to address recreation
effects on species that are sensitive to human presence. For example,
wolverine rearing dens are part of the winter wilderness environment
where we are seeing increasing trends in recreation use. We also
need to address the effects of recreation use on riparian and aquatic
ecosystems, particularly along stream corridors and in high lake
basins which are occupied virtually all summer by recreationists.
Almost all wilderness recreationists know their favorite places
very well, they are passionate in defense of them, and often have
the blisters and sore backs that come from volunteering to restore
trampled and eroded sites and trails. Historic cabins and lookouts
are dearly loved by many, they benefit from countless hours of public
volunteer work. Fire radically changes the recreation environment,
it can also dramatically damage trails and structures such as bridges
and cabins. Fire can alter access to wilderness or result in loss
of access to the most popular areas at the most popular times. Smoke
affects views, sometimes obscures them entirely. How will recreationists,
many of whom have a personal stake in wilderness, react to the idea
of fire burning through their favorite places? Agency efforts to
restore fire to wilderness can have no more credible support than
that which comes from such individuals. These voices of support,
or lack of them, could very well determine whether or not fire can
be returned to a significant role in wilderness ecosystems.
These issues and citizens’ voices will determine whether wilderness
management will be defined by ecological principles and natural
processes, or by recreation demand.
Recreation
is crowding out Wilderness
—
By George Nickas
"Welcome
to the Mt. Hood Wilderness. Please stay on the trails, travel in
the direction of the arrows, and remember at trail intersections
to yield to hikers on your right. For updated traffic information,
call 1-800-WILDERNESS on your cell phone. And please don't linger
on the peak. Let others to enjoy the solitude."
Okay, maybe it’s not quite there yet, but its well on the way.
When I read that Mt. Hood Forest Supervisor Gary Larson (not the
cartoonist--he's funny) had decided to create one-way loop trails
instead of limiting exploding use levels in the Mt. Hood Wilderness,
I couldn't help but wonder what Wilderness Act-author Howard Zahniser
thought of this new take on the law's provision to provide for a
"primitive and unconfined type of recreation."
Maybe I shouldn't be so hard on the Forest Service. After all, it
was the "users" of the Mt. Hood who blasted the plan put
forth by Larsen's predecessor, Rebecca Moltzen, who had the courage
to suggest limiting use to protect solitude and other Wilderness
values. Supporters of the Wilderness protection plan were uncharacteristically
timid. When they did speak out it was to blame the problem on too
much logging on surrounding lands, ignoring the obvious difficulty
of protecting a spectacular Wilderness a few minutes drive from
a million people. Still, even when faced with limited local support
one wishes there were more agency officials with the courage and
vision to meet Forest Service Chief Dombeck’s challenge to
error on the side of Wilderness "even when--no especially when--such
decisions are not expedient or politically popular."
Of course, Mt. Hood's hordes aren't alone. As T.H. Watkins describes
in our feature story, rock climbers came unglued when Forest Service
Chief Michael Dombeck insisted that they comply with the Wilderness
Act's prohibitions on permanent structures and installations in
Wilderness.
Commercial rafting companies flipped last summer when managers of
the Frank Church-River of No Return Wilderness proposed limits to
control crowding on the Middle Fork Salmon River. Hiking clubs from
Seattle marched straight to Senator Slade Gorton, one of the most
notorious anti-Wilderness members of Congress, to prevent the Forest
Service from regulating use to protect solitude in the Alpine Lakes
Wilderness. Not to be left out, motorboaters in the Boundary Waters
and helicopter tour companies in Alaska enlisted Congressional support
to protest being banned from boating and landing in Wilderness.
Vocal special interests, the commercial recreation industry, and
a few pushy policticians--it's precisely the recipe that less courageous
and committed federal managers need to brew a batch of excuses for
letting Wilderness down.
That's one reason we took heart from recent actions in the Granite
Chief Wilderness (see article on page 14). Unlike so many special
interests today, who put their use above safeguarding Wilderness,
the Sierra Club showed great leadership by removing its historic
Bradley Hut. The Hut was dear to many members’ hearts and the
Club didn’t let it go without some difficulty. In other parts
of the Granite Chief, Forest officials didn't shy away from taking
meaningful steps to reduce use where those actions were necessary.
It’s easy for managers to succumb to the demands of aggressive
user and industry groups. The miners, grazers, and timber companies
all had their turn and now, it seems, so will those looking for
fun. Those of us who care about Wilderness, who believe its value
lies not just in the present, but in the future, must redouble our
efforts to protect this priceless and fragile heritage.
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