Weaver: “It is the writer’s opinion that … unless the stagnating stands of reproduction can be thinned and the terrific destruction by pine beetles can be checked the success of sustained-yield forest management in the ponderosa-pine region is seriously threatened.”
[The following opinion piece was written by Suzanne Cable, who serves on the Board of Directors of Wilderness Watch (an organization that I work for.) Suzanne retired in January 2024 after a 30-year career with the U.S. Forest Service and National Park Service, finishing her career as the forest-wide program manager for Recreation, Trails, and Wilderness on the Okanogan-Wenatchee National Forest. Suzanne’s opinion article may be of interest to readers of this blog, especially since it is in response to a recent opinion article by a U.S. Forest Service research fellow. – MK]
The best approach to the preservation of Wilderness continues to be to leave it alone By Suzanne Cable
Contradictory to what is advocated for in a recent article by U.S. Forest Service research fellow Clare E. Boerigter about protecting Wilderness by purposefully “tending it,” the best approach to the overall stewardship of federally designated Wilderness managed in the United States is to do as the 1964 Wilderness Act dictates: leave it alone.
As a retired Forest Service wilderness manager, reading this article really hit a nerve with me—or I should say several nerves. This approach of advocating for management of Wilderness is contradictory to the intent and letter of the law and disturbing. Attempting to stop the ecological clock by human manipulation of Wilderness areas to achieve human-determined preferred conditions through “tending” (as proposed by Ms. Boerigter) is detrimental to the continued responsible stewardship of federally designated Wilderness areas as intended by the Act.
Effective wilderness stewardship takes the long view, and “leaving it alone”—such as limiting direct human control and deliberate manipulation of the ecology of Wilderness areas—is foundational to the long-term preservation of Wilderness. Quoting directly from the Wilderness Act, “A wilderness, in contrast with those areas where man and his works dominate the landscape, is hereby recognized as an area where the earth and its community of life are untrammeled by man.” Key concepts of this statement are “in contrast” and “untrammeled by man.” Wilderness must be allowed to be in contrast with other areas of earth that are dominated by humans and free from direct human ecological intervention.
Manipulation of Wilderness to achieve a condition based on a point in the long arc of ecological time to achieve human interests is the antithesis of humility and restraint, hallmarks of wilderness stewardship. It’s a tragedy that climate change caused by humans burning fossil fuels is radically and rapidly changing natural environments and is a key driver of the global biodiversity crisis. However, overlooking the legal mandate to keep Wilderness wild to achieve short term interventionist objectives of manipulating natural conditions—or tending it—is not the answer.
The less than 3 percent of land in the contiguous United States designated as Wilderness, or about 5 percent of all lands including Alaska, is worth protecting from the manipulative arrogance of humans to control natural conditions for the “benefit” of those systems as well as humans. That 5 percent deserves to be left alone, allowing nature to rule, and to be protected from perhaps well-intentioned, but ultimately regretful ecological interventionist actions. Is 5 percent of the over 2 billion-acre U.S. land base too much to leave uncontrolled by humans since humans have decided to have their way with the other 95 percent ? I say no, and in fact, I’d argue 5 percent is not nearly enough.
The article uses the example of manager-ignited fire as necessary tending. Manager-ignited fire damages the very qualities that define wilderness character in all Wildernesses: untrammeled, natural, undeveloped, and offering outstanding opportunities for solitude or primitive and unconfined recreation. And once started to achieve specific desirable conditions, manager-ignited fire and other interventions must continue in perpetuity to hold back the trajectory of change to achieve the historical condition of one point in time. Thereafter, what about the place remains Wilderness and in contrast to other National Forest System lands? It fundamentally changes the place, loses the qualities that define why it is protected as Wilderness, and becomes another landscape controlled and manipulated by humans.
Rather than promoting wilderness “tending,” it would be great to see the Forest Service conduct research that provides land managers and the public with useful information consistent with the Wilderness Act vs. proposing strategies that would lead managers to take actions that are destructive to the intent of the Act. For example, providing decision support tools to managers about how to allow more naturally ignited fire to burn in Wilderness, rather than being suppressed, would really help.
The article feeds the metaphorical fire of human action bias—to try to fix things that aren’t meeting their desired conditions. Wilderness is one land designation where the action bias is both prohibited by law and also contradictory to achieving its preservation objectives.
Suzanne Cable is on the Wilderness Watch Board of Directors. She retired in January 2024 after a 30-year career with the U.S. Forest Service and National Park Service, finishing her career as the forest-wide program manager for Recreation, Trails, and Wilderness on the Okanogan-Wenatchee National Forest.
Just to be clear, I’ve done much work with TWS and TWS people and have a high degree of respect for them, so these are just questions about the governance and not so much the people.
Funny story.. a representative of TWS worked with us on Colorado Roadless, and argued for various improvements to his way of thinking. One issue was that TWS and others had different WUI maps based on different assumptions (some things never change). When he told us, “it doesn’t matter what you agree to with me, national will never support it.” I just sighed, and wondered if there is a definition somewhere for “good faith negotiations.”
If I were the board of an ENGO, I probably wouldn’t select as President of my organization, a former political appointee. If it were an elected organization, they’d probably want to have members in a broad tent. However if we look at their funding, we see that the Wyss Foundation provides substantial support.
Now, if you don’t follow this stuff, you might not have seen this in Nebraska..
Atop the scheme is Swiss billionaire Hansjörg Wyss. Wyss contributed large sums to two nonprofits, the Wyss Foundation and the Berger Action Fund. Those nonprofits, in turn, contributed to two other nonprofits, the New Venture Fund and the Sixteen Thirty Fund. Those nonprofits then contributed to several other nonprofits, including three Nebraska entities: Nebraska Appleseed, Civic Nebraska, and Nebraska Abortion and Reproductive Justice Fund Inc. Besides the Wyss Foundation and Berger Action Fund, all the other nonprofits in the web also contributed directly to Nebraska ballot question committees.
Now I am not within a light year of being an attorney, and I assume the best about everyone, so I’m sure this alignment between a D dark money donor and the hiring of Stone-Manning is simply an interesting coincidence.
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I was mildly surprised when I read this piece in High Country News.. (I was actually wondering why The Folks Who Decide What’s Important were so focused on the FS and not BLM.. more on that later).
Lee introduced his measure in June as an amendment to Trump’s so-called “big, beautiful” budget bill and pitched it as a common-sense solution to America’s housing crunch. Many treated Lee as a lone actor pushing an extremist public lands privatization agenda, though the Trump administration launched a task force months earlier to study selling off as much as 400,000 acres of federal land for housing development.
As public backlash to Lee’s proposal reached a boiling point, Interior Secretary Doug Burgum attempted to distance the Trump administration from Lee’s effort.
“I don’t think anybody is really spending much time thinking about it up there,” Burgumtold Scripps News in front of the White House in late June, adding that “it doesn’t matter to me at all if it’s part of this bill because that wasn’t part of the president’s agenda to be part of the bill in the first place.”
Rep. Ryan Zinke (R-Mont.), a former Trump Interior secretary who was widely credited with helping block a House effort to sell off federal lands weeks prior, applauded Burgum’s comments in a June 27 post to the social media platform X, writing “the great Interior Secretary Doug Burgum says public land sales are not part of the Trump agenda.”
OK, so far Trump Admin probably doesn’t care that much.
But two weeks earlier, Burgum’s team provided Lee’s committee with technical data about the impact of his proposal and offered feedback that Lee ultimately used to downplay the significance of his proposal.
On June 10, Chris Prandoni, Lee’s legislative assistant on the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, emailed two Interior staffers with draft language for their review.
“This is the quote I’ve been working up with your guys to accurately reflect your research: ‘The Department of the Interior estimates that the Bureau of Land Management has about 1.2 million acres of land within 1 mile of a population city center and another 800,000 acres within 1-5 miles of a population center. Much of this land may qualify for disposal under this section,’” Prandonic wrote. “We also are going to dedicate five percent of the revenue to maintenance backlog.”
The subject of the email — “[EXTERNAL] DRAFT / PRE-DECISIONAL RE: land disposal for housing–new question” — suggests Interior’s engagement with Lee’s staff went beyond what is detailed in the exchange.
Greg Wischer, a former critical minerals consultant who was tapped last year to serve as Interior’s deputy assistant secretary for land and minerals management, signed off on the quote later that evening.
“Good to go on the quoted content. Thanks for running it by us!” Wischer wrote.
That talking point appeared verbatim at the top of an FAQ that Lee released the following day alongside his public land sell-off proposal.
In that same email chain, Jeremy Arendt, Interior’s deputy assistant secretary of natural resources and infrastructure, encouraged Lee’s staff to “include a % of total acres this represents for BLM, which is about 0.7% of the total, or about 30% of lands within 5 miles of population centers.”
The committee’s FAQ dismissed the idea that the proposal is “a massive sell-off of federal land,” noting that it “requires disposal of only 0.5%-0.75% of the [Bureau of Land Management] and [Forest Service] estates. It leaves the remaining 99.25% untouched.”
The communications also indicate that several Interior employees were scheduled to meet with Lee’s staff on June 11, the day Lee unveiled his proposal.
“Thanks, guys. See some of you all tomorrow,” Prandoni wrote after Wischer approved the draft quote.
“Thanks Chris, looking forward to it!” replied Matt Schafle, a former National Rifle Association employee and current congressional and legislative affairs director at Interior.
The Wilderness Society, an environmental organization, obtained the emails through a public records request related to the Trump administration’s housing task force and shared them with Public Domain.
Michael Carroll, the BLM campaign director for the Wilderness Society, said the documents “paint a troubling picture.”
“Rather than engaging the public or pursuing real housing solutions, the administration appears to have spent that time coordinating messaging with the same members of Congress who pushed large-scale public land sell-offs last summer,” he said in an email. “That’s not problem-solving — it’s laying the political groundwork to sell off America’s public lands.”
If I were in Congress, I would want to make sure that my numbers were correct by checking with the agency (!). Somehow I’m not shocked that politicals in Admins talk to their counterparts on the Hill. We know that D’s do the same.
The amazing stretch in this piece is from underlings sharing (helpful info) to… “the Admin really wants to sell off federal lands.” But what’s really interesting to me is that TWS is doing FOIAs as well as interpreting them for us. Note that in this “news article” we are given the picture TWS wants us to hear. Historically, HCN has not been particularly skeptical of claims from ENGO’s so this is not surprising.
The article says that the report was produced by a Substack called Public Domain.
We practice non-partisan adversarial journalism — providing hard-hitting reporting on a critical beat that is too often ignored by mainstream news outlets. We aggressively cover threats to America’s great conservation tradition. We push hard for government transparency and shine light on the inner workings of environmental agencies. We dig into the powerful interests that influence policy from the shadows. And we strive to earn and keep the trust of our readers.
Hmm. Non-partisan. OK then.
You probably won’t be surprised as to who funds the Substack: The Wilderness Society and The Fund for Investigative Journalism. The three reporters seem to work preferentially in outlets with a certain point of view. We know the Wilderness Society and the Park Foundation, a major funder of the Fund for Investigative Journalism. The Park Foundation funds a variety of interesting things (including “keep it in the ground” and Earthjustice and the Tides Foundation, which is itself a big funder so why give them money?) All very confusing.
One good thing about AI is that it’s much easier to track funding for those of us who don’t want to pour through 990’s.
Maybe the real story is that the Trump Admin as a whole never really supported Lee’s proposal. As I said at the time, despite desperate efforts to resurrect the issue, that dog won’t hunt.
I don’t know if this map is accurate, but I got it from Grist
I’ve been reading about the re=evaluation of the Chaco Canyon 10 mile buffer for oil and gas leasing, but the usual coverage by environmental groups doesn’t mention the complexities that there are Navajo families and their elected officials have economic reasons for wanting leasing to occur. I don’t think that that’s really fair coverage although technically true. My concern is that Indigenous people disagree about things, and a person might be left with the impression that groups supported by foundations and ENGOs (in this case, Dine C.A.R.E) somehow represent the overall Indigenous views more than, say, their elected officials. After all people vote for elected officials and they are more or less accountable.. not so much foundations and NGOs.
Back in 2022, though, Dine C.A.R.E. was concerned about off-site effects of the moratorium, according to this Grist article.
“There’s still going to be development going on in that 10-mile buffer, and there’s nothing to prohibit that,” said Carol Davis, director of Diné CARE, a Navajo-led environmental organization. Davis adds that the Interior’s moratorium could push drilling outside the buffer and into communities, “and that’s going to expose people to the adverse health impacts that are a result of oil and gas fracking.”
In fact, the Navajo Nation filed a lawsuit against the Biden Admin, arguing that it violated their mineral rights and that they were not appropriately consulted.
Last week, the Navajo Nation and the Federal government settled the suit, resulting in Tuesday’s dismissal of the case. The settlement directs the government to complete a public consultation and environmental review to decide whether to withdraw the protection within 90 days, which began on March 26.
The most thorough coverage of both sides of this controversy that I have seen was from a 2023 KUNM story. It raises questions about what does Tribal Sovereignty really mean? What Indigenous voices count more than others, and why?
From that story:
FORDHAM: The Department of the Interior says there was extensive consultation on the new rule, including with tribes. But Navajo President Nygren says he personally wasn’t consulted enough.
NYGREN: Tribal sovereignty should be honored, even though it’s tough.
FORDHAM: Plus, he says, fossil fuel has been integral to the history of the Navajo Nation.
NYGREN: So that was the initial development of our government, was based on oil and gas production.
FORDHAM: Oil companies were hugely influential, says University of Arizona historian Andrew Curley, who’s a member of the Navajo Nation.
ANDREW CURLEY: So often people date the origin of our tribal council to 1923. There are these banners hanging up on our solar-powered signposts that say, you know, 100 years of Navajo Nation Council. But the origin of that has to do with oil exploration.
FORDHAM: Oil companies wanted to drill on tribal land, and federal officials set up a Navajo Nation Business Council so there was a body to sign deals. More than 40% of Navajo government income comes from coal, oil and gas. And Curley notes well-paid jobs in mines and plants kept tribal people on their ancestral lands.
CURLEY: So those are some of the benefits, employment and revenues for the tribal government. The detriments are health and environment.
FORDHAM: While the Navajo Nation government opposes the new restrictions, it doesn’t speak for all Navajo people. Navajo activist Mario Atencio campaigned for years to end drilling around Chaco Canyon, worrying about things like contaminated wells.
MARIO ATENCIO: We’re actually protecting the people, but it is environmental and public health, environmental health, environmental justice.
FORDHAM: A lawyer representing some Navajo allotment holders says he plans to sue the federal government to overturn the new rule. Republican Congressmen Eli Crane and Paul Gosar of Arizona introduced legislation to do the same. Meantime, relationships between tribes have suffered. Here’s Gaylord Siow from Laguna Pueblo again.
SIOW: It’s really disheartening, again, that divisiveness that has been caused now between Navajo Nation and Pueblo tribes.
FORDHAM: When Secretary Haaland tried to hold a ceremony in Chaco this summer, she was turned back by angry Navajo protesters.
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Again, I’m just pointing this out to say I think it honors Indigenous people to fairly describe their different points of view. If various Tribes want to contribute to resources the country uses, and have jobs, and not be poor… it seems just as legitimate to me as protecting cultural resources. It should be their choice. And when they disagree.. that’s a problem. But not reporting the complexities of these disagreements doesn’t help, in my opinion. So shout-out to Alice Fordham and KUNM for this reporting.
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Meanwhile, here’s the WEG take at the time (2022)..
There is absolutely zero restraint from the Bureau of Land Management and the Biden administration at this point,” said Jeremy Nichols, climate and energy program director with WildEarth Guardians. “The mineral withdrawal is good politics — it’s good optics — but it’s not going to turn the tide because there are existing leases within the buffer, and outside the buffer it’s business as usual.”
The R&D reorganization story is, at least for me, less easy to imagine- I wasn’t even following R&D Transformation efforts back in 2007. While I’ve worked in FS R&D in DC, on a project briefly, and in various positions as Research-adjacent, I’ve never worked at a Station. I know among the folks reading, there are many with a great deal more time in all these chairs than I have, so I’m hoping you will share your experience and thoughts.
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Background: FS R&D Shares Facilities Budget with NFS
First of all, I think it’s important to compare FS R&D with other in-house (or intramural) research entities. USGS covers much of the same disciplines and topics, and ARS is in the same department as the FS. Both ARS and USGS have their own budgets. Why is this important? You’ll note that Forest Service Operations and Capital Improvement and Maintenance are shared among NFS, SPTF and R&D. If you want to know more about what goes where, there is this internal link. I know people out there know more about this, and work with it every day. My point is that R&D must share this funding with NFS. Which would tend to make the FS want to decrease facilities costs by combining people from Districts, Forests, other NFS entities, and R&D into the same buildings where possible.
Facilities are not people and not research programs. Some people (and many media reports) seem to think that that closing a facility automatically means that the scientists at a location will be RIFed (or moved to Fort Collins) and the research, therefore, not done. The number I mentioned yesterday, which I think to be accurate, is less than 500 people will need to be relocated out of the commuting area and they received their letters. Even when the Reorganization at USDA came up, I think many conflated buildings (facilities) with people and programs.
When I saw the list, I saw some of the units that have been proposed in the past..maybe 20 or 30 years or so?
Note:Be very careful of AI- I remember, and you all remember, many R&D facilities that were closed in the past. The Macon Fire Lab, the Bend Silviculture Lab, Carbondale (moved to the university), Olustee and so on. I couldn’t get a complete list from AI and had to prompt it with each name I remembered (I used Google AI) it would be interesting to see what others come up with. I asked “What Forest Service research facilities were closed between 1980 and 2024?” and at first it told me about today’s proposed closures and basically told me my question was irrelevant. It seemed to get huffy after I asked about Macon, Bend, etc.
In some cases, scientists move from FS owned facilities because universities offer better laboratories or a more intellectually or family- desirable location. But it can also work the other way, the FS shuts down a facility and the scientists move to a nearby campus. So programs (lines of research), people, and facilities are three different things. Scientists and other scientific staff are the producers of work, not facilities.
One example, when I spent time at the Bend Silviculture Lab, the Area Ecologist (for four Forests) and his staff were all located there as well as research scientists. The interaction was terrific, and one-stop shopping for many of us. So the closure was definitely sad for those of us working in Central Oregon. Many of us fought it in one way or another. Nevertheless, work at Pringle Falls Experimental Forest appears to be ongoing. Which reminds me of…
Experimental Forests and Ranges
The existence of experimental forests and ranges IMHO is one of the strengths of the Forest Service. The H.J. Andrews for example, is funded by NSF because it is also an LTER (which has mega-science-bucks). It’s also funded by Oregon State University, charitable support and other sources.
Some of these have buildings for researchers to stay; not sure that these facilities are on the block.
Role of Congressional Delegations
In the past, Congressional delegations have pushed back against any facility closures (NFS or R&D). Sometimes that leaves the FS between the proverbial rock and hard place, Congress won’t fund enough to keep them open, but won’t let the FS shut them either. Wending their way through these challenges is a difficult task. I don’t know if this list is pre-Congress or post-discussions with Congress, or an opening gambit in what could be years of discussions.
Structure of Other In-House R&D
ARS has regions…
And so does USGS (unified across DOI apparently, what a concept!)
If I showed you a study, you probably couldn’t guess whether it was the FS or USGS who produced it.. unless it was more minerals, energy and geology (USGS) or timber and wood, tree physiology, genetics, insects and disease. (FS). Birds, animals, watersheds, fish, fire, plants, ecology could be either and likely both.
If I were in charge of creating a better whole USG research portfolio, I’d work to ensure that there are no gaps or overlaps (including NSF, DOE, NIFA (and probably NIH when it comes to wildfire smoke) in addressing questions important to Interior and USDA agencies, States, Tribes, and other landowners. But that’s just me.
What Do Stations Do, and How Would State Offices Be Involved?
Most of us can probably imagine (especially if we followed the Transformation effort) what it would look like to have no regions, but service teams for much of the technical support work instead. For me at least, it’s much harder to think of what work currently at Stations would go to national service teams. Some are easier to think of than others, say communications and statistical services.
Part of what the Stations do is foster relationships with other research entities, management folks, the public, Congressionals and so on. Some forms of accountability are also done at the Station level.
Accountability in R&D has taken different forms even in my time.. at one time we had WO reviews of Stations with recommendations, but then (I think it was the Deputy Chief) decided that “suggestions” was strong enough. Then there was the period when folks were supposed to write up the real-world results of applying their research- that seemed to be a useful exercise, although some Stations tried harder than others. I don’t know what current accountability efforts include.
Sometimes it was hard to work collaboratively as R&D (I remember a Communications Team..) because different Station Directors were trying to maximize their own budgets and helpful relationships. At one time, the WO staff (in my case, Timber Management Research) held budget strings and did reviews, but that changed so that some units saw (some of the WO folks) as irrelevant without the budget responsibility. The point of all this history is that if you look at this effort at reorganization with a wider time lens, parts seem familiar (facility issues) and other parts are truly novel (no Stations).
What Do Scientists Actually Need?
If you take a look at your favorite scientist and look at their publications, many of them involve measuring studies in the field and various kinds of computer modeling and statistics. Some need laboratories for their work. Depending on the nature and costs of the equipment, does it make sense for the FS to buy it themselves (and deal with hazardous waste, etc.) or work with university or other partners? The answer is… it depends. I won’t be second-guessing anyone’s choices,
How Did the Team or Teams Look at the Organization and Why Did They Choose This Approach?
We don’t know if the teams working on this did benchmarking with the other research agencies, or what exactly they looked at and what they came up with. I’m hoping to find out via FOIA.
More Invisible People
We tend to use a shorthand of “scientists” as producers of research and there are many folks out there who do not have the “scientist” title but without whose work scientists wouldn’t be able to conduct their research. So let’s give a shout-out to the often unsung and underappreciated whatever their title and grade!
The violet patches on the three petals of the mariposa lily serve as nectar guides to its many pollinators, especially beetles. (Photo by Gene Yates)
For those in the Jewish faith community,
פֶּסַח שָׂמֵחַ לְךָ וּלְמִשְׁפַּחְתְּךָ
And for Christians, may your Holy Week be filled with grace and peace.
In my own tradition, the Triduum starts this evening, so I will be off until Monday.
I will still be approving comments, so please leave your comments and questions, and hopefully we can get the questions answered by the FS. FS folks: “we don’t know yet” is a valid answer.
[The following opinion piece was written by Kevin Proescholdt, the conservation director at Wilderness Watch (an organization that I work for). I thought it would be of interest to those on this blog, especially since the piece is in response to a recent opinion piece by a U.S. Forest Service research fellow. Founded in 1989, Wilderness Watch is the leading national organization whose sole focus is the preservation and proper stewardship of lands and rivers included in the National Wilderness Preservation System. – MK]
For Wilderness to remain wild, it must remain unmanipulated By Kevin Proescholdt, Wilderness Watch
A recent piece by a U.S. Forest Service research fellow supporting manipulating designated Wilderness areas showed a profound misunderstanding about Wilderness, its history, its stewardship policies, and the Wilderness Act itself. The author’s proposed solution would result in the loss of the very quality for which Congress designated Wildernesses: their wildness.
The Forest Service proposal suggests that we use active management interventions and manager-ignited fire in Wilderness to counter the impacts of climate change and to replicate Indigenous burning practices. In doing so, it reflects an all-too- common bias within the federal land management agencies for active management activities and projects. It also reflects a similar all-too-common hubris and arrogance in those same federal agencies that they know what’s best for Wilderness, that their choices for desired future conditions in Wilderness should take precedence over Nature’s choices.
The proposal flies in the face of wilderness policy, history, and the provisions of the 1964 Wilderness Act itself. The one central purpose of the Wilderness Act, its prime directive if you will, is to preserve wilderness character, an area’s wildness. In fact, the Wilderness Act is so emphatic about that point that it says it twice: “[E]ach agency administering any area designated as wilderness shall be responsible for preserving the wilderness character of the area and shall so administer such area for such other purposes for which it may have been established as also to preserve its wilderness character.” The federal courts have consistently agreed that this is the central purpose of this law.
Howard Zahniser, the visionary conservationist who wrote the 1964 Wilderness Act, also wrote extensively about wilderness. In one of his well-known passages, written 11 years before the Wilderness Act passed Congress, he explained, “We must remember always that the essential quality of the wilderness is its wildness.”
Yet the Forest Service proposal wants to “improve” or freeze ecological conditions within Wilderness with active management and manipulation, even though doing so will result in a loss of the area’s wildness. The Wilderness Act does not direct us to preserve any certain ecological condition or forest type, but rather to preserve the area’s wildness, even if some of us humans may not always like all the outcomes that Nature might devise.
Across the nation, the federal agencies try to manipulate Wilderness to fit their desires, not Nature’s choices. The agencies are trying to poison 46 miles of Buffalo Creek in the Absaroka-Beartooth Wilderness of Montana, for example, to plant fish that never historically lived there. In the Sequoia-Kings Canyon Wilderness in California, the agencies want to invade Giant Sequoia groves to log out undesirable trees and plant sequoia seedlings, despite the lush natural sequoia regeneration after recent fires. In the Shawnee National Forest in southern Illinois, the agencies want to burn off the entire National Forest, including about 40,000 acres of designated Wilderness there, even though the fire history there is much different than in the arid West. And in the Sierra and Sequoia National Forests of California, the Forest Service wants to torch 842,000 acres of designated Wilderness in a panicked attempt to prevent future wildfires.
The recent Forest Service proposal also wants to manipulate Wilderness to honor or replicate the practices of “Indigenous peoples, who in fact tended those lands for thousands of years.” While the intent to honor Indigenous peoples is honorable, the suggestion is off-base here as well. It cites trail networks, scarring of tree bark, and berry picking as examples of how Indigenous peoples influenced the landscapes.
Here again, the agency’s misunderstanding of wilderness history, stewardship, and law comes through. The 1964 Wilderness Act defines Wilderness in part as “untrammeled.” Untrammeled does not mean “untouched” or “pristine,” as the proposal implies. The Wilderness Act does not in fact contain either word. Untrammeled rather means unmanipulated, unconfined, uncontrolled, or unrestrained. An untrammeled Wilderness would allow ecological and evolutionary forces to operate without restraint, modification, or manipulation. If Indigenous people made trails, or scarred bark, or picked berries, or engaged in myriad other activities that had impacts on these places—much like many allowed uses do today—those actions don’t violate the meaning of “untrammeled” within the context of the Wilderness Act. Nor does the law require us now to replicate those activities.
And recent research published in the journal Ecological Citizen has confirmed that the use of fire and other impacts by Indigenous people were fairly localized to Indigenous settlement areas and not universal across the entire landscape where many Wildernesses now are located.
Howard Zahniser, who thought deeply about Wilderness, often wrote that we humans need to approach Wilderness with humility and restraint. In his famous 1963 essay, he encouraged us to be “guardians, not gardeners” with respect to Wilderness, again utilizing humility and restraint to protect, not manipulate, Wilderness. The Forest Service approach would instead substitute the hubris and arrogance in the federal agencies for the humility and restraint that Wilderness needs, destroying the wildness that makes these areas so special in the first place. Instead of that approach, let’s instead continue trying to keep Wilderness wild.
Kevin Proescholdt is the Conservation Director for Wilderness Watch, a national wilderness conservation organization. He has worked in wilderness policy, legislation, and history for more than a half-century, including working to pass the 1978 Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness Act through Congress and co-authoring the history of that struggle, Troubled Waters: The Fight for the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness.
A federal judge ordered the Bureau of Land Management to close off-road vehicle trails that cut through tortoise habitat in the western Mojave Desert.
The ruling follows years of legal battles between environmental groups and the BLM.
Resistance to the decision remains fierce both among Californians that recreate in the area, and the small businesses they support.
It is interesting to note the color in the beginning of the article..
Biologist Ed LaRue, who has taken up the cause of the animals, watched the other day as a lifted pickup truck with a large American flag and a utility task vehicle raced down a trail in the Mojave, sending up plumes of dust. The two vehicles barreled over a road and careened into the Ord Rodman Area, which the federal government has deemed critical to the desert tortoise’s survival. One appeared to then drive off the designated route.
Why use “drove” when you could use “raced” “barreled” and “careened”? Oh, well.
“These public lands are our shared heritage. They provide important habitats for these species and they’re important for many people who love to recreate,” said Lisa Belenky, attorney for the Center for Biological Diversity. “But right now, one form of recreation, motorized recreation, is dominating these lands and literally ruining them.”
So there are ORVs with trails going off-trail (bad) but it kind of sounds like a slippery slope about vehicles (OHVs and cars) and roads.
LaRue used to work for the BLM as one of two biologists who helped create the West Mojave Plan, which crafted a strategy to conserve more than 100 native plants and animals, a plan that included a survey of the threats affecting local tortoises. The list included upper respiratory tract disease — which scientists attribute to people releasing infected tortoises kept as pets — as well as habitat loss and degradation from a variety of sources, including development, military maneuvers, livestock grazing and offroading.
Vehicle access is linked to more vegetation destruction and soil disturbances, according to the report. That in turn leads to the spread of invasive weeds, which can crowd out the plants tortoises eat and fuel wildfires.
People are also more likely to dump garbage alongside established roads, which can then attract ravens that feed on baby tortoises.
Here’s my favorite part..
Climate change-supercharged droughts, and large-scale solar development across the Mojave have also emerged as growing threats, LaRue said, standing atop the tawny Cinnamon Hills in the Ord Rodman Area. But OHV use is different, he said, because it’s “one of the threats that we could ostensibly control.
So “we” can’t control development, military maneuvers, livestock grazing or large-scale solar development. That seems problematic. Also problematic is enforcing the route closures. So can “we” really “control” them?
It’s unclear how the agency plans to enforce the route closures across such a massive and remote area. The Barstow and Ridgecrest field offices have 15 law enforcement rangers tasked with overseeing about 5 million acres of land, which includes most of the critical tortoise habitat in the western Mojave.
“I fear that recent staffing cuts and budget reductions are going to make this a difficult challenge for the BLM,” said Randy Banis, president of Friends of Jawbone, a nonprofit that promotes off-roading in Kern County’s Jawbone Canyon.
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The story does talk about the loss to individuals and businesses in the area.
Most painful is the prospect of losing access to cherished places, Travis said. He and his wife may no longer be able to take visitors to Cuddeback Dry Lake Bed, a massive playa they describe as magical, or to some of the nearby hiking trails they’ve grown to love.
“The vastness and the quiet and the peace you get here is unlike anywhere else you can find in California,” Lorene said. “It is devastating to realize a massive amount of land will be completely inaccessible.”
Many off-roaders are good stewards of the environment and shouldn’t be blamed for the continuing decline of the tortoise, the Frankels said, pointing to the ravens as the real issue. The intelligent corvids were once hard to find in the desert but their numbers have exploded due to increases in food, water and perching opportunities that came alongside human development.
I’d be interested in what kind of “human development” occurs on or near BLM land. Is it just campers that lead to corvids, or towns or ???
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So, just another controversy over uses and impacts.
Except Center for Western Priorities in their newsletter this AM, quotes Jonathon Klein as saying that the BlueRibbon Coalition is a “disinformation group” (I guess that’s code for “someone we disagree with”) and that BRC is only complaining about the closure to fuel the agenda to sell off public lands.
He notes that BlueRibbon Coalition is led by Ben Burr, a former staffer and relative of Senator Mike Lee, who has a long history of attempting to dismantle public land protections. “They are stooges to these public lands sell-off ghouls and haven’t spoken out about anything but these distractions since the Trump administration’s war against public lands has begun in earnest,” writes Klein.
The article warns that the real threat to Americans’ access to outdoor recreation isn’t the temporary closure to protect wildlife, but the broader movement to dispose of public lands. Klein urges riders not to support groups like Blue Ribbon Coalition, which he says “are fighting against your interests, plain and simple.”
I don’t think that was the CWP’s intent, but the article makes me want to send bucks to BRC. And I have never ridden an OHV. , Waving the “Mike Lee selling off public lands” fearmongering banner is getting increasingly tiring. I suppose I should be glad they didn’t bring up the Bundys- this time.
Below are the funding sources for the effort. I’m ambivalent about bringing up funding sources, but Dee in response to the Breakthrough’s piece commented that Breakthrough was funded by East Coast billionaires. At the time I thought, so what? Isn’t everything funded by East or West Coast billionaires? It’s unlikely that large organizations can be run on the bank accounts of FS retirees, for example.
The State of the Rockies Project at Colorado College is primarily funded by the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, which recently renewed its support with an $800,000 grant in 2024. Other key supporters include the David and Lucile Packard Foundation, Western Conservation Foundation, and Trinchera & Tercio Foundation, along with private donors and alumni.
If you’re interested in following funding, it’s easier nowadays I think via AI on google searches. Interesting that the Western Conservation Foundation is funded by a DAF (so we don’t know the funders) and by RF Catalytic Capital which is in turn funded by the Rockefeller Foundation. Here’s a link to Hewlitt’s current plan.. I thought this was interesting..
To date, we are approximately 65% of the way toward the foundation’s long-term goal of protecting half of the North American West. In the past five years, our grantees achieved new protections on approximately 10 million acres, which was our goal. The strategy’s goal in this respect was intentionally modest, as we focused more on the new work of building inclusive coalitions, which is slower to show progress but will, we believe, produce greater and more durable gains over time.
You can also check out what they are granting and to whom for how much. I wonder whether they might support some aspects of federal lands recreation programs if they could be argued to fit with their conservation or communication goals. Example page:
That was a bit of a rabbit trail, but I have recreation funding on the brain. They could probably fund a volunteer coordinator on each NF and BLM unit, training and equipment without batting an eyelash. Which would have direct real-world positive impacts on the environment. I would guess more so than strategizing or coalitioning or communicating to reduce carbon emissions by 2050.
