Wilderness

Forest plans and legislation – Blackfoot-Clearwater wilderness proposal

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Blackfoot-Clearwater Stewardship Project map, Feb. 2018.

Wilderness designation has always been controversial in Montana.  No new wilderness areas have been established by Congress since I believe 1977, and unlike most states there has never been statewide wilderness legislation.  The Blackfoot-Clearwater proposal to designate 90,000 acres on the Lolo National Forest was locally developed and has been pending in Congress for several years.  Its development included addressing issues related to motorized and mechanized recreation that we have been discussing here, and designates areas for both.  This article provides some background, and includes a link to the written statement from the Forest Service regarding the proposed legislation.

The statement relates to forest planning in a couple of ways.  First, the Forest Service uses the Lolo National Forest forest plan as the foundation for its position on the legislation.

We also have concerns about implementing section 202, which establishes the Spread Mountain Recreation Area for the apparent purpose of enhancing mountain biking opportunities. The Lolo’s current land and resource management plan identifies this area as recommended wilderness. This area is characterized generally by steep topography, sensitive soils, and contains sensitive fish and wildlife habitat. Trail 166 is the main access into this area. This trail is not maintained, not passable by riders on horseback, and becomes difficult to locate after the first mile. While we acknowledge the interest in expanding opportunities for mountain biking on the Lolo, we are concerned that the site designated for the Spread Mountain Recreation Area is not well-suited for this use, and that this designation could create conflicts with wildlife and other recreation uses.

Two of the three wilderness designations in Title III are consistent with the recommendations made in the existing Lolo National Forest land and resource management plan. The third designation (West Fork Clearwater) was not recommended in the management plan to be Wilderness, it was allocated to be managed to optimize recovery of the Grizzly Bear.

One might argue that the 1986 forest plan is outdated, and recent local efforts should be given greater consideration.  However, those efforts have not been through any formal public process, so I commend the Forest Service for using its forest plan.  I’m not sure whether NFMA’s consistency requirement applies to taking positions on legislation, but it is probably the right place to start.  The proposal is also interesting in its legislative designation of two “recreation areas,” taking these decisions out of the forest planning process.

The Lolo is scheduled to begin its forest plan revision process in 2023, and the Forest Service is also concerned about the interaction between the revision process and this legislation.  It sounds like mostly a budgetary concern:

Our primary concerns pertain to Title II. Section 203 which would require the Forest Service to prepare a National Environmental Policy Act analysis for any collaboratively developed proposal to improve motorized and non-motorized recreational trail opportunities within the Ranger District within three years of receipt of the proposal… If passed in its current form, this bill could require recreation use allocation planning for site-specific portions of the Seeley Lake Ranger District ahead of the broader plan revision process, which would forestall the Lolo’s ability to broadly inform land use allocations across the forest through the plan revision process… If enacted, the explicit timeframes currently contained in the bill could result in prioritizing the analysis of a collaboratively developed proposal to expand the trail system over other emergent work.

But they might also be suggesting that the site-specific recreation planning would benefit from waiting until the forest plan is revised.  (Or maybe they just don’t like deadlines.)

Forest planning for mechanized use in recommended wilderness

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We’ve talked about whether mountain bikes should be allowed in areas recommended for wilderness designation by the Forest Service in a forest plan, for example, here.  Most of the angst has been related to a policy adopted by Region 1 that many interpret as excluding this use because allowing it would reduce the likelihood that an area would actually be designated.  Here’s an example from another region of how a forest plan would address this question.  This language is from the draft EIS for the Nantahala-Pisgah National Forest revised plan (North Carolina). While this is written about the effects of wilderness designation, the DEIS also makes it clear what activities the Forest thinks would create a risk to future wilderness designation options.

Wilderness recommendation and designation would remove the potential to generate revenue from timber production, forest product sales, and other land uses which support surrounding development such as utility or transportation corridors. No new mineral claims would be filed, but valid existing claims would be allowed to operate.

Existing roads within recommended areas would either continue to be maintained as linear wildlife fields or decommissioned and allowed to return to a natural state. No new wildlife fields would be created nor any timber harvest activities allowed. Restoration activities where the outcomes protect wilderness characteristics would be allowed to continue, including monitoring, relocation of animals, habitat improvements such as removal of nonnative fish species and nonnative invasive plant species, stream improvements, and rehabilitation of recreation impacts.

Existing trails would continue to be maintained to allow for hiking and equestrian use per current trail-use designations, but mechanized transport such as bicycles or carts would be prohibited in all recommended areas (with exception of approved mobility devices for the impaired). Commercial collection of non-timber forest products such as galax or ginseng, would not be permitted; however, collection for non-commercial or tribal purposes would be allowed. Other commercial activities such as recreation special-use events would also be prohibited in areas recommended for wilderness designation.

The mountain bike decision by the Forest was the followed discussions with a public working group, which also included consideration of whether future wilderness recommendations could be conditioned on providing adequate mountain bike trails.  The location of the trails was potentially less important than the amount, but it is unknown at this time where additional trails might be and how that might affect wilderness boundaries.  Consequently, trails in a potential wilderness area could be managed to phase out the existing but unauthorized mechanized use gradually after providing other comparable opportunities, and when certain conditions were met, appropriate areas would be formally recommended, with the full support of both mountain bike and wilderness groups.  But the Forest ended up recommending the area for wilderness, which would exclude the use.
In effect, the Forest appears to have considered an alternative that would have not recommended an area, but committed to a process that would recommend some or all of it as wilderness in the future (presumably with a plan amendment) when certain objectives are achieved.  You don’t find this alternative mentioned in the DEIS, though, as one considered but eliminated from detailed study.
Back in R1, the Nez Perce-Clearwater draft revised plan includes a suitability designation regarding mechanized use in all areas recommended for wilderness designation in a particular alternative.  Of the four action alternatives, one has no recommended wilderness and one would allow mechanized use in the areas recommended.  (The DEIS does not say what the current direction for recommended wilderness is.)  There is no preferred alternative.

 

The Wilderness Visitor: Necessary Nuisance or Raison d’etre?

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First slide of powerpoint

 

The attached Powerpoint Chojnacky–NWSA Wilderness Presentation 10-25-19  includes complete notes on the slides by the authors.  This post is longer than usual, as it involves original material. Many thanks to Cindy and Dave for posting here!

The PowerPoint and notes are a presentation we did October 25 at the National Wilderness Stewardship Association (NWSA) in Bend, OR—an ecletic mix of agency wilderness managers, researchers, volunteer stewards (such as “friends” groups interested in trail maintenance for a particular wilderness) and other non-government entities.

Our presentation was based on observations in hiking 60 wilderness areas (including a few other protected designations) in 11 states over past seven years. We found, oddly, that much wilderness is underutilized and unknown—while a few areas with good trails, good information or well-known features are overused and get the most management attention.

I  The Wilderness Act- Ends and Means

Policy analysis focused on “legislative intent”—what did Congress intend? Readers can follow my analysis of the Act’s STATEMENT OF POLICY SECTION 2 in more detail in the PowerPoint notes. In paraphrasing 2 (a)—the Act states an intent to “secure for the American people…the benefits of an enduring resource of wilderness,” and to designate wilderness areas which “shall be administered for the use and enjoyment of the American people.” Therefore, the purpose for wilderness is people’s use and enjoyment—e.g. wilderness experience.

The task of management agencies is also spelled out: “these shall be administered in such manner as will leave them unimpaired for future use and enjoyment as wilderness…” Unimpaired could be called wilderness quality. “In such manner” is the job of wilderness administration with wilderness quality the means for achieving the Act’s purpose or end: people’s use and enjoyment of wilderness (experience).  Much wilderness research, management and activism have focused on wilderness quality—and particular overused areas have received the most study and management concern. We concluded that focus only on wilderness quality—the means—if ignoring the overall purpose or end—wilderness experience—could  treat the wilderness visitor as a threat or nuisance.

The Act’s most repeated word is “use” (32x). SECTION 4 on USE OF WILDERNES AREAS starts with a long paragraph (a) aimed to ensure that wilderness management agencies retain their original mission and authorities along with the new task (b) of “preserving the wilderness character of the area.” This paragraph lists six “public purpose uses”: four we labeled experience (recreational, scenic, educational and historical) and two quality (scientific and conservation).

SECTION 4 (c) lists 10 PROHIBITED USES—probably well known to all—including commercial enterprise, roads, motorized equipment and mechanical transport. An exemption—”except as necessary to meet minimum requirements for the administration of the area for the purpose of this Act”—might be the basis for Forest Service strict “minimum tool” regulations for wilderness management. For example, primitive tools such as cross-cut saws were probably appropriate for trail work in the first decades after the Act was passed because national forest wilderness included a vast legacy trail system that was built for transportation with stock that was still being regularly used for forest management. But today most Forest Service Guard Stations are closed; and long gone most stock and skilled field personnel that regularly cleared trails in course of duty. In addition, 1960-1990 was an era of relatively stable weather, small fires and minimal trail damage. Perhaps we should  relook at the Act’s exemption for select use of chainsaws in some areas where 21st century climate-related mega-fires, unprecedented avalanches, and other causes of tree mortality have blocked many trail miles with downfall—if public access is within the Act’s purpose.

Interestingly, the largest “use” word tally (12) is under SPECIAL PROVISIONS (d) is preexisting “prohibited” uses that may be exempted such as grazing, fly-in airstrips, commercial outfitter camps and so forth. The Wilderness Act appears to be a bold experiment in land use management to benefit the public with rather broad exemptions—not a mandate for rarely-visited, off-limits sanctuaries. Perhaps these are needed, but we will need a new law to do this.

II. Wilderness Experience Sample (many great photos of the authors’ experiences are in the Powerpoint)

Finally we attempted to quantify our own wilderness experience in 309 days of hiking about 3,339 miles in 60 wilderness areas in Eastern and Western states—spanning conifer forest, hardwood forest, desert and seashore. We identified six barriers to our experience and then evaluated each wilderness as to which barrier(s) severely impacted our experience—e.g. we would not repeat the trip for “enjoyment.” All but nine areas had at least one show-stopper barrier—most due to trail design or maintenance issues. We closed our presentation with a few ideas on shifting focus to visitor-focused management mainly in brainstorming mode.

III. Studying, Monitoring and Managing Wilderness Experience

Our analysis of words and wilderness experience are somewhat subjective because we began this project with a sense that our wilderness experience had been declining in recent years but were not sure why (furthermore, attempts to fund systematic studies of emerging enviromental issues in wilderness were met with disinterest; so we decided to just “go to the wilderness”). We’d love to see more systematic study of wilderness experience over the entire National Wilderness Preservation System. But, as one speaker pointed out at the NWSA meeting: much funding is spent on getting more wilderness acreage while only “pennies” are spent, relatively, on wilderness stewardship—let alone evaluating the wilderness experience.

Ironically, in the same sentence on wilderness in the 1964 Act SECTION 2. (a) that mandates “the preservation of their wilderness character” is also a mandate for “gathering and dissemination of information regarding their use and enjoyment as wilderness”—a type of report we have never seen. Instead “wilderness character monitoring” seems to be sole emphasis of agencies’ wilderness reporting—even though the Act does not mandate such a report. Nor is the science of wilderness character monitoring developed to the point where consistent indicators (and electronic protocol) would allow scaling up information to evaluate the National Wilderness Preservation System.                                      

Wilderness Trails and Trammeling: Cindy Chojnacky

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This is a photo I found of a Weminuche trail. but this is rather minimal deadfall compared to what I’ve observed. Other photos invited.

I thought I’d repost Cindy Chojnacky’s comment as I think she made a number of points that added to the original topic here. I would only add that I have also noticed, specifically in the Weminuche Wilderness which was the topic of our early discussions, the phenomenon she describes of “”social trails” around down trees, spaghetti paths through boggy areas and/or trampled mud around broken/unrepaired bog bridges” in areas blocked by deadfall.

Here’s what she wrote:
Ironically I was backpacking in a wilderness study area (Pioneers) this week and missed the post until now. Some good thoughts on wilderness and trails although I am only responding to the original opinion piece from a policy and a visitor (heavy wilderness user) standpoint.

I agree with George Nickas that wilderness is “commitment to humility” and his critique of the Forest Service leaving its wilderness management work to volunteers. However, opposing chainsaws in wilderness to clear trails and—for that matter—much of Wilderness Watch emphasis is based on a wrong policy interpretation of the Wilderness Act that misses the purpose of Wilderness. Let’s look at the 1964 Act policy statement in its entirety:
“In order to assure that an increasing population, accompanied by expanding settlement and growing mechanization, does not occupy and modify all areas within the United States and its possessions, leaving no lands designated for preservation and protection in their natural condition, it is hereby declared to be the policy of the Congress to secure for the American people of present and future generations the benefits of an enduring resource of wilderness. For this purpose there is hereby established a National Wilderness Preservation System to be composed of federally owned areas designated by Congress as “wilderness areas”, and these shall be administered for the use and enjoyment of the American people in such manner as will leave them unimpaired for future use and enjoyment as wilderness.”

Wilderness exist for the purpose of public use and enjoyment. Perhaps wilderness should be preserved for its own sake but that is not the purpose of the Wilderness Act. Even the management requirement to leave wilderness unimpaired is for “future use and enjoyment.”

Now, why is the Forest Service proposing to use chainsaws in the Weminuche and South San Juan Wilderness? Nickas doesn’t say but I imagine trails are blocked by deadfall. So the Forest Service wants to restore public access to wilderness. By the way, only the Forest Service rigorously restricts chainsaw use in wilderness; Park Service does not always. This is not law but an agency policy or at best interpretation of law.

With climate change increasing forest health issues and expanding fire size, fewer trails in wilderness are accessible to the public. That channels more people onto fewer trails in already heavily used areas, creating more “trammeling” of wilderness. Here are examples:

Ramsey’s Draft Wilderness, Virginia—Beautiful canyon trail Jerry’s Run used to be green meadow now full of shrubs and down eastern hemlock thanks to exotic hemlock wooly adelgid. Perhaps Forest Service has fixed this now but last time I talked to recreation staff, they could not get certified sawyer to clear trail.

Mazatzal Wilderness, Arizona—Has fairly well-cleared Arizona Trail (by volunteers) on the crest but venture west into large network of rangeland trails no longer maintained by permittees and never restored after 2004 Willow Fire—and you battle miles of desert vegetation, dense woodland regrowth or down trees if you want to visit the state’s largest national forest wilderness.

Sawtooth Wilderness, Idaho—We hiked a lightly used trail (in this heavily used wilderness) connecting popular Hell Roaring and Redfish Lakes that was a mess of down trees —until we left the wilderness near Redfish and found a lovely trail nicely cleared by chainsaw.

Frank Church River of No Return Wilderness, Idaho—Friends of mine were turned back on epic trip through central Idaho with llamas because deadfall on famous Middle Fork of Salmon trail was not cleared. This trail contours on steep granite slopes high above the river—it would be life threatening to try go around the logs; after several days of hand-sawing they gave up on hiking Middle Fork.

Wilderness Act restrictions are not about banning technology for the sake of banning technology. If so GPS, lightweight backpacking gear, satellite phones, etc. should also be banned. Furthermore—the Wilderness Act allows exemptions for existing uses that includes technologies. In the “Frank”, for instance, fly-in airstrips and lodge in-holdings with hydro-electric power dams were included in its enabling wilderness legislation. In some western wilderness areas, range permittees are allowed to improve water developments with a bulldozer! Many “wilderness” roads are routinely exempted or cherry-stemmed.

Many legacy trails in premier wilderness areas like Zion, Sawtooth, Frank Church were built using dynamite, chainsaws and any other available technology.It seems that in an era where trails will not be cleared and public access lost in many log-jammed areas, that specific exemptions of chainsaws is actually in keeping with Congressional precedent. Good constructed, well maintained trails are probably the “lightest touch” possible for wilderness management. The alternative seems highly eroded overused trails, new game or “social trails” around down trees, spaghetti paths through boggy areas and/or trampled mud around broken/unrepaired bog bridges—a huge problem for dozens of national forest wilderness areas that I’ve visited in last decade since Forest Service stopped supporting routine trail crews.

Nickas rightly notes that the Forest Service (and other wildland fire agencies) can pull together a firefighting force at a moment’s notice—but the agency’s fire focus is driven by politics and money. Hear the local Congressmen, ranchers and small communities start screaming if the feds don’t come to the rescue when wildfire threatens.

Yes, it’s sad that the agency that launched the career of Aldo Leopold, named the first wilderness (Gila) and founded much of the philosophy in the Wilderness Act has so little commitment to wilderness today (except for some very zealous folks at the field level). But I would like to see the Non-Governmental Organization’s wilderness zeal going into creative solutions to disperse visitor use throughout our vast wilderness system and perhaps even pursue a new entity dedicated to wilderness management, rather than fighting the Forest Service in court and tying up what little effort is out there to keep wilderness available for public use and enjoyment.

Chainsaws in Wilderness on the San Juan- The Ferebee Letter and Two Questions

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Many thanks to Anonymous for finding this informative piece on the issue in the Durango Herald. It did raise some questions in my mind, though, perhaps worthy of discussion here.

First, as I pointed out in a previous comment, there is too much snow to imagine that the FS would be doing this for a very long time period this summer. Here is the Ferebee letter:

As indicated in my May 31 letter, snowpack conditions in these two wilderness areas are highly unusual for this time of year, ranging from 500% to more than 700% of normal as of May 30. Reports by trail crews and scouts over the past week indicate that access into the backcountry to perform trail maintenance work will need to be delayed even further than initially forecasted. Avalanches have blocked many trails and those trails are unlikely to be accessible until late in the year. Given these unexpected and extraordinary conditions, it is unlikely that we could access our wilderness trails to begin work by July 8, and therefore it is also unlikely that we would realize any substantial benefit from the use of chainsaws to clear trail obstructions during the period authorized by my May 31 letter.

Avalanches and heavy snowpack have created changed conditions. We expect significant resource damage to have occurred, more so than what was anticipated from the time of my original and amended decisions, which now must be further addressed. Therefore, we will reassess the overall needs, considering these changed conditions, as related to wilderness and non-wilderness trail impacts. I am rescinding the approval to use chainsaws that was conveyed in my May 7 letter, as amended by my May 31 letter, until our assessed needs are completed.

It is expected that trail clearing with non-motorized equipment and trail reconnaissance will proceed to the extent feasible, with priority being given to safety, and reduction of the potential for resource damage and impairment of wilderness values. Some elements of my May 7 decision will proceed as planned. Specifically:

1. Identify and maintain a record of trail segments encountered during maintenance activities that meet the “jackstraw” standard of 40 or more downed or leaning trees per mile obstructing the trail route, particularly those that are not able to be cleared with non­ motorized equipment this year.
2. Study and report on the efficiency of using non-motorized saws to clear trails in the wilderness; and
3. Study and report on the efficiency of using chainsaws to clear trails outside of wilderness, and how those efficiencies would be affected by lack of proximity to motor vehicle travel routes that are typical in wilderness.

In addition, publicity surrounding this proposal has elicited interest from several new sources in providing volunteer and other labor to perform trail clearing with non-motorized equipment.
Both Forests should fully explore these offers to determine if they may in fact provide viable sources of skilled labor that would reduce the need to perform trail maintenance with chainsaws in the future.

My first question was surprise that there are people out there willing to volunteer to do trail maintenance, who have only offered since they heard about the possibility of chainsaws in Wilderness. It would be interesting to know who these folks are, so that forests might find out how they could be missing potential sources of volunteers.

Second is that the article in the Durango Herald quotes:

While the number of downed trees seems daunting, former trail crew members have told Pearson there is not much of an advantage to using chain saws because the heavy saws and gas must be packed into the wilderness to clear trails, Pearson said.

“It’s not really demonstrably needed to get the job done,” he said of using chain saws.

I have never cleared trails in Wilderness, but I have spoken to people who clear trails who think that they can get more done with chainsaws. I wonder why people disagree about this.. does anyone have any insights?

Here is a link to some people in Oregon who seem to disagree with Pearson on this.

Northern Rockies Ecosystem Protection Act- Groundhog Day Stew with a Dash of Trump

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Apologies, I couldn’t get the color explanations to print out.  Dark green is new wilderness and orange “wilderness recovery areas.”

I looked this Act up on Wikipedia and it turns out that the same (?) bill seems to have been introduced in 2011 (and dates back to 1993?) by the same folks with testimony by Carole King starting in 1994. Nevertheless, we are assured the New York Times writers, Mike Garrity of Alliance for the Wild Rockies and Carole King, of singing fame, of this op-ed that it’s particularly important to do it now because:

To be fair, the Obama administration also pursued some of those actions. But the current administration’s zealotry threatens the region’s wild landscape and rich biodiversity…

Of course, when the Times writes about the interior West, we can assume that we are dealing with the imperial gaze. There are a couple of interesting points I’d like to draw out, but would like to hear from people who know more about the bill and about the history (and the other Rocky Mountain Front Wilderness additions and how they fit together), and to link to our recent discussions, what are “Wilderness Recovery Areas?”

Big Gulps Mean Big Targets.  There is a reason that the FS and partners aren’t usually thrilled about “big gulp” projects or “landscape scale restoration via large projects”.  They mean big total numbers that can be used in media campaigns, and attract big attention from folks who are of a litigious bent.

In August, a three-judge panel of the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit voted unanimously to halt a planned 125-square-mile logging and burning project in the Payette National Forest in western Idaho. The court concluded that parts of the project ran counter to the forest’s management plan.

Under that project, so many trees would have been cut that the forest would have no longer provided elk or deer with the cover they need. Forest streams would have been filled with sediment from bulldozers building miles of new logging roads — further damaging the native fisheries for which the Northern Rockies are internationally famous.

Without looking at the EIS, I think “the forest no longer providing elk and deer the cover they need” is probably an overstatement.

Forest streams “full of sediment”? Doesn’t the State of Idaho have water quality requirements? Yes, they do, in fact they have audits and a continuous improvement program. I did not get the “full of sediment” feeling from reading the 2016 audit found here.

All Roadless to Wilderness
Under the 2001 Rule, the only things you would be kicking out to change to Wilderness are pre-existing oil and gas leases (before 2001 RR or possibly gap when 2001 RR was enjoined), OHV’s and bikes. But that’s based on reading the Maloney summary linked in the op-ed here and not the whole bill.

  • Designate all of the inventoried roadless areas in the Northern Rockies as wilderness, protecting 23 million acres of land that is home to vital ecosystems and watersheds

  • Establish a system to connect biological corridors, ensuring the continued existence of native plants and animals

  • Keep water available for ranchers and farmers downstream until later in the season when it is most needed

  • Allow for historic uses such as hunting, fishing and firewood gathering

  • Protect forest canopies that absorb greenhouse gases

I don’t know many folks who gather firewood in wilderness, nor in roadless areas… because they gather firewood near roads to get it home.

Et tu Wikipedia?
The entry in Wikipedia says under Opposition to the Legislation here:

Opponents to the NREPA state that there will be a loss of extraction jobs in the northern Rockies; mining, logging, and oil/gas production as a whole account for many of the jobs in the five affected states. [5

But if they’re already Roadless, then how much mining, oil and gas, and logging is going on? This is all very confusing. It would be great if every Wilderness bill or RWA or any special designation, for that matter, would simply have a table of “what’s currently allowed in terms of plans/rules/designations currently” “what will not be allowed under the new designation” “what existing users (actually on site, not potential) will not be allowed to continue their uses” and “what do we know about where those people will go.” IMHO,so much drama and needless carbon -impacting electrons could be saved by a standard Change Of Use Table for every potential change in designations!It also directly would acknowledge that the kicked out folks will go somewhere else and perhaps introduce opportunities and resources for helping them transition as part of the designation process.

Wolves On The Rise in Germany: Prefer Military Training Areas to “Protected” Areas

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Wolf pups in Neuhaus, Lower Saxony, on Saturday. Photo: DPA

New Scientist covered this story, which relates to the discussions we’ve been having about Wilderness Xtreme and Wilderness Lite. It also causes me to reflect on the distinction between “ideas about things” e.g. Wilderness in the US, and “things” e.g. wolves and their behavior, and the fact that creatures (including humans) don’t always behave as academics predict. It’s all pretty interesting, and I bolded the quotes I thought to be particularly relevant.

In the 1980s, wolves started returning Germany, mostly from Poland. “We were expecting that the large forest areas northeast of Berlin would be the first place settled by the wolves, because it is close to Poland and has dense forest,” says Ilka Reinhardt at Goethe-University Frankfurt.

But she and her colleagues have now analysed data from national surveys of wolf populations, and found that the first wolf colonies established themselves in Saxony, to the south of Berlin, on military training areas. This land isn’t open to the public, though there are no fences stopping people from entering.

With their dense forest cover and low density of roads, these military areas are a similar habitat to protected natural areas. But the team’s analysis suggests that the military land is in fact better for wolves – the animals died less often from human interactions in these places than they did in land specifically set aside for nature.

“Most of the dead wolves that we find have died in traffic accidents,” Reinhardt says. Though road density is similar in military areas, there may not be as much regular traffic there, she says.

The relative safety of these training areas seems to have helped wolves spread across Germany. Analysing data on wolf distribution collected between 2000 and 2015, the team found that wolves seem to be jumping from one area of military land to another, sometimes moving through and beyond other protected areas before establishing a territory.

Over 15 years, they found that wolves went from one established mating pair to 67 pairs across the whole country, with the population growing exponentially. By 2015, wolves had populated 62 per cent of the military training areas larger than 30 square kilometres, and only 14 per cent of similarly sized protected areas.

While it may seem like tanks and wolves make strange bedfellows, similar trends can be seen in other countries. “Something we see in our work in California is that lots of areas that have destructive processes happening, like logging, can be really important core habitats for large carnivores – here, it’s mountain lions,” says Justine Smith at the University of California Berkeley.

 

Many species are more afraid of humans than they are of our associated machinery like cars or even tanks, she adds. Recreational activities are often promoted on protected lands, while the public has very little access to military land.

“I think what might be going on is that in many parts of the world, protected areas are built in places that have a lot of people already. Or they can attract people to live near them because of the benefits they provide,” she says.

So the relative solitude of a military training ground may be what the wolves prefer. The routine of a military schedule could help as well. “There is some shooting, but it’s always in the same areas and it’s usually during the workday, so the animals can get used to it,” says Reinhardt.

Smith says conservationists could work with federal governments to optimise these lands even more by limiting light or noise pollution at night.

Here’s another news story about wolves in Germany.

Colorado Wilderness and the CORE Act: Hearing From Those Left Out of the “Consensus” Corrected Version

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The Lost Lake Road and trailhead near Vail would be adjacent to one of the proposed wilderness areas under the CORE Act.

Thanks to Patrick McKay for this guest post. Note that this post has been updated as of 3/11/19, thanks to Patrick getting more information from Conservation Colorado. Thanks to Patrick and Conservation Colorado![/caption]

Lately I have been seeing a steady stream of articles and editorials in publications around Colorado advocating for Senator Bennet’s Colorado Outdoor Recreation and Economy (CORE) Act, based on the fiction that there is a strong consensus among stakeholders in favor of this bill. There is no such consensus. The CORE Act is simply a combination of failed wilderness bills that were each too unpopular to pass on their own. Those who support multiple-use of federal lands for all forms of recreation, rather than locking them up for the exclusive use of a single user group, unequivocally oppose it.

The motorized recreation community especially opposes the bill, because it would convert thousands of acres of land currently open to motorized use into wilderness. Almost every area of proposed wilderness is either currently open to motorized use or is considered a motorized expansion area under current Forest Service travel planning.

This bill will be devastating to snowmobilers, dirt bikers, Jeepers, and mountain bikers, who will all either immediately lose access to existing recreational opportunities or potentially lose opportunities in the future as a result of the bill. Snowmobiles would be hurt the most, as vast tracts of land that are currently open to that activity would be closed. In one of the most callous corporate land grabs imaginable, the popular Sheep Mountain area near Silverton would be closed to mountain biking and snowmobiling (which has been allowed since 1983) but would remain open to a private heliskiing operation.

This comes amidst an ongoing feud between local snowmobilers and the outfitter, which has long sought to secure exclusive first-tracks usage of the area for its clients. The CORE Act picks a firm winner in that conflict, favoring corporate interests over the public (including quiet use) in giving the company the exclusive right to mechanized access. Members of the public would be forbidden to even fly toy drones in the area, but a corporation would still be allowed to land noisy helicopters in what would otherwise be managed as a wilderness.

While it will not close them directly, the bill threatens several important Jeep trails including Imogene Pass between Ouray and Telluride (a Jeep Badge of Honor Trail), and other routes that would be “cherry-stemmed” by the bill. The wilderness boundaries would be placed within 50 feet of the edges of these roads, making future trail maintenance or re-routing impossible. Requests by the motorized community for larger buffers surrounding existing trails have been rebuffed.

These boundaries are based on the Forest Service Motor Vehicle Use Maps, which are frequently inaccurate regarding the actual locations of roads on the ground. With so little buffer, any mapping errors could result in the permanent closure of some of the best off-road routes in Colorado. Moreover, there are no additional protections in the bill ensuring cherry-stemmed routes will remain open in the future, which is a significant concern given that roads cherry-stemmed by past wilderness legislation have frequently faced immense pressure for closure in subsequent travel planning due to conflicts with the surrounding wilderness areas.

Even where this bill does not directly close trails, permanent wilderness status will preclude any future expansions of existing trail systems. It will also deprive the Forest Service of much-needed flexibility in caring for forests already suffering from poor health, beetle infestations, and wildfires.

While I agree that wilderness areas are important and I enjoy hiking and backpacking in them myself, Colorado has plenty of wildernesses already. The CORE Act claims to promote recreation in Colorado while in fact decreasing existing opportunities for recreation. This site has previously covered the issue of manufacturing wilderness by kicking out existing users, and that is exactly what is occurring here.

If new wildernesses are to be designated, that should be done without closing areas currently open to other incompatible forms of recreation. If not, wilderness proponents should at least be honest about the fact that they are deliberately sacrificing certain forms of recreation in order to promote others, abandoning any pretense that they are anything other than a majority steamrolling a disfavored minority. Consensus, that is not.

Correction: An earlier version of this article stated that this bill would directly close motorized trails in the Spraddle Creek and Tenderfoot Mountain areas near Vail and Dillon, and would put wilderness boundaries next to the Holy Cross City trail near Leadville. After a discussion with one of the proponents of the bill, I discovered these statements were incorrect, and were based on inaccurate information in my source material as well as low-fidelity maps that made it difficult to determine the precise boundaries of proposed wilderness relative to nearby motorized routes. I apologize for these errors.

The Region 1 Recommended Wilderness Policy

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Region 1 forests are adjacent to those in Regions 2, 4 and 6.

Folks have been kind enough to send the text of the Region 1 Wilderness Policy document we have recently been discussing. Here it is Region 1 RWA Policy.  I don’t have any particular expertise in the World of Wilderness (other than experienti

(1) When does the FS find a need to standardize? This is one of the greatest mysteries of my FS career.  It has seemed to me that culturally the local level tends to hang on to its autonomy as much as possible.  But the argument that Chief Tom Tidwell (then Regional Forester, and/or his then-staff) makes in the letter is that:

“Some areas are managed by more than one unit and the units have different management approaches, particularly for motorized recreation. This results in public confusion and can result in encroachments of illegal activities on to the adjacent forest.” Of course, the argument could potentially be made for the WO to issue a national policy, as Regions may also have neighboring (although perhaps not adjoining) Recommended Wilderness areas. And national groups could easily raise the question “if it’s OK to centralize the approach at the Regional level, why isn’t it OK to centralize at the National level- wouldn’t that would be even less confusing?” I guess I can understand if each Forest makes up its own approach, because that shows up in an EIS and can be questioned, objected to, etc. But that leads to exactly the kinds of problems that the Region 1 letter was intended to solve.

2) The other impression I get is that these decisions seem to be highly technical. In a way, the question of whether it’s suitable or not is ultimately a judgment call.  It is not any less a judgment call because there is an elaborate analytical process, but the very elaborateness and complexity can confuse the public (at least it confused me).

After the 2005 letter, along came the 2012 Rule.  Perhaps others know this, but weren’t the Directives put out for public comment? And wouldn’t the procedures for Recommended Wilderness be part of the Directives? Here’s a piece of the letter:

The three tests of capability, availability, and need will be used to determine suitability as set forth in Forest Service Handbook (FSH) 1909.12, Chapter 2, 72. . In addition to the inherent wilderness quality an IRA might possess, the area must provide opportunities and experiences that are dependent upon and enhanced by a wilderness environment. The area and boundaries must allow the area to be managed as wilderness.

Capability is defined in FSH 1909.12, Chapter 72 as the degree to which the area contains the basic characteristics that make it suitable for wilderness designation without regard to its availability for or need as wilderness. Availability determination is conditioned on the value of and need for the wilderness resource compared to the value of and need of the area for other resources. Need is the determination that the area should be designated as wilderness through an analysis of the degree that the area contributes to the local and national distribution of wilderness.

I also wondered where it was in statute or regulation that wilderness needs to be “locally and nationally distributed.” There are few or no Grassland Wildernesses that I know of, so perhaps they should be on the top of the list?

From a letter signed by then Regional Forester Tidwell to Sandra Mitchell in 2007.

I hope you will see that the process is very rigorous and intended to eliminate from consideration those areas that are really best suited for uses that are not compatible with wilderness designation. The final decision on which areas to recommend is done through a thorough and open public involvement process.

IMHO if uses are currently there, then to determine that land is “best suited” for being without those uses, is a difficult philosophical question. Because if you are a Wilderness aficionado, then everything could be argued to be best suited for Wilderness, if all you have to do is remove mountain bikes, OHVs, snowmobiles, fire suppression, roads, fuel treatments, and so on. I think the Region 1 twist seems to be that there are some uses like mountain bikes that never should have been allowed in certain areas, and they occupy a less legitimate position than other longer uses.

This whole discussion has given me much sympathy for both the FS and the public who deal with these analyses.

Northern Region Regional Forester talks about bikes in recommended wilderness

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I’ve excerpted the portion of the Regional Forester’s objection decision on the revised forest plan that addresses this issue, dated August 15, 2018 (p. 46).  It upholds the Flathead Forest Supervisor’s decision to designate recommended wilderness as not suitable for mountain bikes.  I’ve highlighted the language in the regulation that addresses the question about whether the only concern should be physical impacts.  The objection decision also indicates that the decision to recommend wilderness or not took into account existing mountain biking.  It also addresses the alleged bias towards this solution in the Northern Region.  This probably pretty much summarizes the current state of the debate from the Forest Service perspective.

Some objectors requested that bicycle use (mechanized transport) be allowed in recommended wilderness, along with chainsaws (motorized equipment) for the development and maintenance of trails, as long as these uses do not preclude wilderness designation.

The areas recommended as additions to the National Wilderness Preservation System are allocated to management area 1b. This management area has plan direction in the form of desired conditions, standards, guidelines, and suitability to “provide for…management of areas recommended for wilderness designation to protect and maintain the ecological and social characteristics that provide the basis for their suitability for wilderness designation” as required at 36 CFR 219.10(b)(iv).

The suitability component MA1b-SUIT-06 indicates, “Mechanized transport and motorized use are not suitable in recommended wilderness areas” as a constraint on these uses to help achieve desired condition MA1b-DC-1 that states, “Recommended wilderness areas preserve opportunities for inclusion in the National Wilderness Preservation System. The Forest maintains and protects the ecological and social characteristics that provide the basis for wilderness recommendation” (revised plan, p. 9).

As one of the key issues identified from the public scoping comments, the draft EIS analyzed a range of alternatives for managing mechanized transport and motorized use in recommended areas. Alternative C included the suitability component MA1b-SUIT-06 and alternative B did not. The intent of varying the direction was to assess how this plan component would help the Forest achieve the desired conditions for recommended wilderness. After considering the analysis and the public comment on the draft EIS, Forest Supervisor Weber found the MA1b-SUIT-06 component analyzed in alternative C was the appropriate first step in ensuring the protection and maintenance of the areas he decided to recommend in the draft decision (draft ROD p. 19).Therefore, he modified alternative B to include MA1b-SUIT-06.

The intent of suitability component MA1b-SUIT-06 is to not establish or authorize continued uses that would affect the wilderness characteristics of these areas over time (draft ROD pp. 18-19). By deliberate design, the areas being recommended for wilderness in alternative B modified do not currently have significant mechanized transport use occurring. Per public comment on the draft EIS, boundary adjustments were made in the final EIS to remove areas from recommended wilderness that currently allow mechanized transport and over-snow motorized vehicle use (FEIS, pp. 27-28). As there is some over-snow motor vehicle use allowed in one recommended wilderness area (Slippery Bill-Puzzle) (FEIS, section 3.15.3; appendix 8, p. 8-261), Forest Supervisor Weber has endeavored to accommodate this desired recreation opportunity by changing the desired recreation opportunity spectrum in another area of the forest for potential site-specific designation of additional snowmobile areas 2. With these changes between draft and final EIS, the decision maker found that the eight areas recommended represent high-quality areas on the Forest capable of maintaining their unique social and ecological characteristics, while considering the tradeoffs regarding public desires for other uses of the land.

At the resolution meeting, some expressed a concern regarding an “unwritten rule” in the Northern Region that precluded Forest Supervisor Weber from exercising his discretion to choose the appropriate management of recommended wilderness on the Forest. Although previous Northern Region staff drafted guidance for management of recommended wilderness during land management planning, this was prior to the 2012 planning rule and associated implementing directives. I would like to assure objectors and interested parties that I allowed and encouraged Forest Supervisor Weber the discretion to determine management direction for the Forest per the forest-specific conditions, public engagement, law, regulation, policy, and the direction in FSH 1909.12, chapter 70. As a result, per the discretion described in the Agency’s direction at FSH 1909.12 chapter 74.1, option 2, Forest Supervisor Weber did analyze allowing existing uses to continue (DEIS, p. 26). However, as indicated in the draft ROD, he found the best strategy to protect the wilderness characteristics was to eliminate existing uses per chapter 74.1, option 4.