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Thanks to Matthew Koehler for this link and also for the above photo
FYI: http://www.newwest.net/topic/article/rocky_mountain_front_heritage_act_misses_on_weeds_and_wilderness/C41/L41/
Guest Column
Rocky Mountain Front Heritage Act Misses on Weeds and Wilderness
A coalition claims it wants to protect Montana’s Rockies by supporting the proposed Rocky Mountain Front Heritage Act, but is it a wolf in sheep’s clothing?
By George Wuerthner, 8-21-11
The Coalition to Protect the Front supports the Rocky Mountain Front Heritage Act as a means of “protecting the Front”. It justifies the legislation by the “threat” noxious weeds make to the native plant communities of this magnificent landscape. Weeds, by displacing native plants, reduce the carrying capacity of the Front for native wildlife—which everyone agrees is one of the special attributes of the Front.
Unfortunately, the Heritage Act only proposes a paltry 67,000 acres as wilderness. While any new wilderness on the Front is welcome, the Heritage Act misses an important opportunity to protect the bulk of the wildlands that exist here, including the Badger Two Medicine and other important roadless lands.
Indeed, on its web page, the Coalition describes the threat of more wilderness as one of the reasons for supporting the plan. So to prevent the “threat” of wilderness, locals want to designate the majority of land along the Front as “Conservation Management Areas.” What a misnomer that name is.
Conservation Management would permit logging, livestock grazing and motorized use in some areas. All of these activities have been recognized time and again as destructive to native ecosystems, and biodiversity and ironically all are among the major sources for the spread of weeds.
Yet the participants supporting the Rocky Mountain Front Heritage Act either do not know, or more likely, have agreed to ignore the well-documented role that logging, motorized use, and most especially livestock grazing have in the spread of weeds and for creation of the disturbed soil habitat that favors weed establishment to garner support from these constituencies.
It’s like a coalition made up of tobacco companies agreeing that lung cancer is a serious threat to American health without mentioning that cigarette smoking is a major contributor to that cancer.
Instead of dealing directly with the cause of weed spread, the Coalition wants to treat the symptoms. It’s analogous to promoting cigarette smoking while advocating for more hospitals to treat cancer victims. This never works, and will only result in more weeds, and greater tax payer subsidies of these industries and activities.
The best way to slow and prevent the spread of weeds is to eliminate motorized access, logging, and cattle grazing. Designation of wilderness is by far the best solution (other than it unfortunately allows cattle grazing to continue—thus guarantees more weed spread).
If people are truly concerned about the spread of weeds, then we need to recognize that livestock (also an exotic species that displaces native species) grazing, motorized use and logging are incompatible with that goal. And the silence on this issue by the Coalition to Save the Front makes them all the more culpable in the spread of these unwanted plants.
What makes the Heritage Act even more disappointing is that the Rocky Mountain Front wildlands received some of the highest wilderness quality ratings of all federal lands outside of Alaska during the RARE11 (Roadless Area Review Evaluation) in the 1970s. These are among the best wildlands left in the lower 48 states, and to allow a small group of self appointed local folks to degrade wildlands values that belong to all Americans by allowing continued logging, motorized use, and livestock grazing is an affront to Americans and future generations.
The best way to save the Heritage of the Front is to eliminate these degrading uses and designate all the remaining roadless areas as wilderness. The Coaliton to Protect the Front Heritage Act is nothing more than a wolf in sheep’s clothing designated to permanently protect activities known to degrade and destroy public values.
George Wuerthner is an ecologist, former government botanist, and author of 35 books.
Comparing this piece and the earlier one here, it sounds like the Coalition wants to keep things more or less the way they are in terms of people’s access to natural resources and recreation.
George would prefer that no logging, grazing or motorized use take place. He raises the issue that :
These are among the best wildlands left in the lower 48 states, and to allow a small group of self appointed local folks to degrade wildlands values that belong to all Americans by allowing continued logging, motorized use, and livestock grazing is an affront to Americans and future generations.
Are they a “small group”? I don’t know. Should local people be allowed to continue their traditional access to natural resources given that they respect environmental laws? Who would decide not, and on what basis?
“Conservation Management would permit logging, livestock grazing and motorized use in some areas. All of these activities have been recognized time and again as destructive to native ecosystems, and biodiversity and ironically all are among the major sources for the spread of weeds.”
Blanket statements like this turn me off to George’s slanted message. If all of these activities added invasive weeds, I would think that there would be no lands without the weeds, by now. I’m not saying unregulation is good, though, and it is clear that no one wants that.
“It’s like a coalition made up of tobacco companies…”
There are PLENTY of similar comparisons to preservationists and “cancer in our forests”. As lands become less worthy, through bark beetles and wildfires, of course we will have less new Wilderness designated. If the preservationists are unwilling to reach consensus, and compromise, then this is the scenario you will face on the Wilderness issue. Even the rural Democrats won’t vote for new Wilderness without a trade-off.
I’m glad the division between the preservationists and the conservationists has become so acute. The lines are being drawn and it appears that only litigation will settle some of these issues. No consensus or compromise will occur outside of the courtrooms. The public can easily see the choices and preferences, and I think the public won’t support doing nothing.
i have to take issue with this guest column, although I appreciate exposure to the ideas. Weurthner’s argument, while noble in some regards, is dated, scientifically misinformed, and needlessly strident. The supposed “well documented role of livestock grazing” in the spread of weeds fails to hold up under scrutiny. A more correct statement would add the qualifier “traditional” before “livestock grazing” because the problem isn’t all grazing. The problem is traditional grazing.
Scientific evidence shows that cows, when properly trained, can thrive on vegetation traditionally classified as weeds. Practical applications of this science are occurring on the Front Range, as well as elsewhere in the Inter-Mountain West, in the Northern Rockies and in parts of the West Coast, in Canada, and in Eastern States. More often than not, the most difficult aspect of the problem are the human misconceptions that amount to urban myths about what cows will eat. The perspective of this guest columnist illustrates the problem well.
Despite his stated qualifications, Weurthner’s statements come across as an example of little more than personal preferences camouflaged by a veneer of selective science. With encouragement and support, ranchers can be part of the solution, rather than dismissively demonized based on faulty assumptions and an incomplete understanding of available research.
Many people, including Weurthner, fail to realize that cattle grazing can convert vegetation from weeds to forage simply by teaching cows to eat weeds. When cattle learn to forage vegetation-formerly-known-as-weeds, that vegetation is less capable of spreading because the cows eat it. If ranchers learn to hit that vegetation with grazing at the right times, those once-weeds are eaten, digested, and controlled. If the same number of cows graze the same number of acres and have been taught to forage those once-weeds, the carrying capacity of that area goes up for native species or, if appropriate, for cattle. This is especially true given that those once-weeds are often as nutritious–if not more–than other vegetation found in the same area. The scientific evidence for all this is incontrovertible even if poorly known and often dismissed out of self-interest, whether that of an herbicide seller or a preservationist. And its hard to argue that this isn’t a classic win-win situation for ranchers, conservationists, and, yes, even preservationists. To learn more, go here: http://livestockforlandscapes.com/
Perhaps the next book Weurthner writes might look at challenging assumptions, including his own, that deserve suspicion. While Wilderness is much needed and invaluable, so is conservation management, especially when those efforts embrace innovative approaches to management, partnerships, and collaborative public land management. A willingness to suspend disbelief is worth encouraging among all those who have come to such strident positions. Those who offer all-or-nothing answers or who reflexively reject options other than their own seem less than scientific because, at least in my world, scientists search for truth by challenging their own assumptions as well as the claims of others.
This “cows eating weeds” stuff is fascinating. It represents the best of blogging, in that new concepts, unfettered by go-along-to-get-along conventional wisdom, are brought to the fore.