More on the Nez Perce-Clearwater-Lolo revision (and the Great Burn)

Here’s a little more (added to this) on the Nez Perce-Clearwater revised forest plan.  Mostly I wanted to share this graphic of how they are “reaching out” to the public.  They ask an important question:  “What can you do?”  The obvious meaning seems to be what can you do about the forest plan, and the answer for most people is “nothing.”  They say that the plan is in the objection period, but don’t tell us that the only people who can participate are those who have already done so.  They invite us to “learn more,” about this nearly-done deal, which they misleading label as a “draft Forest Management Plan.”  (At the draft EIS stage, the Planning Rule refers to it as the “proposed plan,” and at the objection stage it is just the “plan.)   While they have must have included similar outreach at earlier stages in the process, for those encountering this for the first time, it’s almost disingenuous.

But while I’m at it , there was also another article recently that focused on the State Line Trail, which runs through the Hoodoo Recommended Wilderness Area in the Great Burn between Idaho and Montana.  (I’ve been there but haven’t been directly involved in the planning, so know only what I read.)

“It used to be a marquee backcountry ride for mountain bikers, too. That ended in 2012 when the Nez Perce-Clearwater National Forest, which controls the Idaho side of the trail, approved a new travel management plan that barred bicycles from its portion of the trail. On the Montana side, the Lolo National Forest has long allowed bicycles on the trail.”

A new revised forest plan for the Nez Perce-Clearwater could change that, by determining that bicycles are an appropriate use in the portions of Idaho around the trail, which would mirror access on the Montana side. If the changes in the plan are finalized, possibly later this year, that would set the stage for the Nez Perce-Clearwater to revisit and alter its 2012 travel plan to formally re-allow bicycles on the trail.”

The rationale behind these changes, according to the forest supervisor, don’t seem to include consistency (more on that later):  “We have these types of very primitive, amazing, out in the middle of nowhere experiences that you can get to no matter what your matter of conveyance is.”  No apparent agency recognition that the conveyance is part of the experience for those who encounter it, and for some it makes it feel unpleasantly more like “somewhere.”

One of the supporters added, “It’s a small segment of the sport that this is going to appeal to,” he said. “It’s not that close to Missoula. It’s hard. The trail’s in deteriorating condition. But this opportunity is, for certain people, something they really, really want.” That small segment of certain people (who apparently want to deteriorate the trail even more) must be pretty special to get this kind of personalized attention.

“Some mountain bikers are drawn to remote, rugged, and challenging backcountry trail experiences on wild and raw landscapes,” a group of supporters commented. “These are places where it is uncommon to see other trail users, and where riding requires a high level of physical fitness and technical skill — in many cases it involves pushing a bike instead of riding at all.”  That would be like hiking, wouldn’t it?  So, it’s not like closing the area to this use would exclude these physically fit people from these wild and raw landscapes.  I’ll admit that I don’t understand the rationale of wanting to experience a “wild and raw landscape” on a machine, which (to me) reduces the rawness and wildness of the experience.

The aura of personal opinion and politics behind these wilderness debates is why I focus my energy on other things.  Here there is also talk about snowmobiles and mountain goats, and why mountain goats are treated differently in adjacent national forests.

As for the effects of snowmobiles on mountain goats, the Idaho Department of Fish and Game blamed them for disappearance from one part of this area, but the founder of the Backcountry Sled Patriots says otherwise (citing other research).  The Lolo National Forest cited the negative effect of motorized over-snow machines as reason for designating them a species of conservation concern.  The Nez Perce-Clearwater is not concerned about mountain goats.  The Forest Service minimizes the importance of the areas at issue to mountain goats (though they apparently used to be some places they are not found now).

About the Lolo, Marten, the regional forester, who determines which species are SCC, wrote:

“Compared to other ungulates, the species appears particularly sensitive to human disturbance. Motorized and non-motorized recreation, as well as aerial vehicles, are well documented to affect the species, particularly during winter and kid-rearing season, with impacts ranging from permanent or seasonal (displacement), to changes in behavior and productivity.”

The regional director for ecosystem planning said that she didn’t see the different listing decisions as being in conflict with each other. Rather, she said, they reflect that mountains goats are doing better overall on one forest than the other.  This may be technically/legally possible since SCC are based on persistence in an individual forest plan area.  However, it doesn’t make a lot of sense to me to manage one national forest to increase the risk to, and to contribute to SCC designation on, another forest.  Moreover, the Planning Handbook states that “species of conservation concern in adjoining National Forest System plan areas” should be considered by the regional forester in making this designation.  This all has kind of an arbitrary ring to it.

As for consistent management across national forest boundaries, The Nez Perce-Clearwater plans to change the shape of the Hoodoo RWA to remove the key snowmobile areas from it, so that boundary between the national forests becomes a boundary for the RWA.  The Forest Service points out that the plan revision process in the hands of forest supervisors, not the regional office.  The forest supervisors disclaim any obligation for consistency, and even suggest that travel planning may produce a different result, and “forest plans and travel management plans are continually updated and amended” so they could change again.  That doesn’t square well with history.  The every-third-of-a-century Forest plan revision should be the time to get it right.  Even if the regional forester doesn’t want to say what the plans must do, that person could simply order them to be consistent along this boundary.

Nez Perce Clearwater Forest Shrinks Great Burn (Recommended) Wilderness

The details of this plan are outside my range of knowledge, but I thought this story was interesting.  First of all the headline, “shrinks Great Burn Wilderness”. Of course, forest plans can’t actually do that, so I looked further and the plan reduces the Recommended Wilderness.  Which of course is not the same thing. Headlines.. sigh.

The Nez Perce-Clearwater National Forest supervisor trumpeted her new forest plan as the best compromise for all, but when it comes to proposed wilderness, both advocates and opponents disagree.I’m not a fan of using the word “trumpeted”.   It seems like there’s been “emotional wording” inflation since folks discovered that emotions drive engagement which drives bucks in internet world.

The story has many quotes from Probert, the Forest Supe,  the Great Burn Conservation Alliance executive director Hayley Newman,  and other ENGO folks.

“The Forest Service has sat back while illegal motorized use has encroached on the Great Burn for years, and now it’s decided to reward illegal use by rewriting the forest plan to make it okay,” said Maddy Munson, Wild Montana Public Lands director.

Newman said one forest – the Nez Perce-Clearwater – shouldn’t be allowed to diminish a wilderness that’s partially managed, and managed differently, by another forest: the Lolo. For example, the Lolo Forest recently designated the mountain goat as a species of concern while the Nez Perce-Clearwater has not. Plus, one forest plan might sway another, said Katie Bilodeau, Friends of the Clearwater staff attorney.

Yes, plans done on a forest by forest basis may not harmonize across boundaries. The idea of “swaying” is interesting. Conceivably earlier plans may make it easier for the next plan to make the same kinds of choices.  I don’t see that that is good or bad necessarily unless you don’t like ideas in the earlier ones.. but that could work both ways “hey that forest gave us an extra 100K of RW, so you should too!”

I thought that this was interesting.

In her decision rationale, Forest Supervisor Cheryl Probert said the question of what to recommend as wilderness garnered the most public interest of all aspects of the draft forest plan released in December 2019, accounting for 18% of almost 20,000 comments.

Different forests have people interested in different things during planning and apparently wilderness is big there.

Probert said she’d heard about the need to protect wolverine and mountain goats but also heard complaints from snowmobile users who said that “there are no replacements for the opportunities provided here.” She asked opposing groups to come up with a compromise, but none came. So she carved the area up to create one.

I don’t know if it’s just the way it’s reported, but it sounds like she herself did it. I’m thinking it’s likely that her staff and she had many discussions and they probably didn’t all agree.  It sounds kind of dismissive “she carved up” versus, say, “after a series or far-ranging discussions with members of the public, interest groups,  elected officials, she and her staff came up with this proposal as a possible solution.”

In fact, wilderness groups want the Forest Service to enlarge the Great Burn Wilderness to encompass adjacent roadless areas to the west, an addition of 40,000 acres. But, Probert bypassed three plan alternatives with more recommended wilderness – between 309,000 and 857,000 acres – preferring an alternative with just 197,700 acres of proposed wilderness.

However Probert did propose one new wilderness, Meadow Creek, with almost 73,000 acres adjacent to the Selway-Bitterroot Wilderness south of the Selway River.

Hopefully some TSW readers, including motorized folks (apparently not interviewed for this article) will weigh in and add their perspective.  Just a thought.. there seem to be forest vegetation collaborative groups where people who disagree reach compromises.. this doesn’t seem common in recreation disputes (or is it?).  Maybe our social science friends have studied why that might or might not be the case.

Finally, did opening up the decision about Recommended Wilderness via plan revision lead to a better on-the-ground outcome in some way?  Did it encourage groups to work together, or just open a new arena for the same old battles?

 

A Three Sisters Wilderness Trails Presence: Mounted Ranger and Packer Jim Leep

Mounted wilderness ranger and packer Jim Leep on mule.

Mounted wilderness ranger and packer Jim Leep on patrol.

By Les Joslin

With the Green Lakes Trailhead Information Station at the primary eastern entrance to the Three Sisters Wilderness up and running, I spent the summer of 1993 training volunteer wilderness information specialists to staff that station, staffing it myself on days a qualified volunteer was not available, and patrolling the trails when the station was staffed.

Late that summer I met the other volunteer wilderness ranger on patrol a mile or two north of the Green Lakes—some six trail miles north of the Green Lakes Trailhead—while I was surveying campsites in that relatively remote stretch of the wilderness. I knew this volunteer mounted ranger and packer had begun service that summer, but this was the first time our trails had crossed.

We introduced ourselves. Jim Leep was a retired Portland, Oregon, police officer who, by all reports, was doing a superb job that summer doing what mounted rangers and packers do—serving wilderness visitors and transporting trail crew camps, equipment, and such materials as signs, sign posts, and water bars. And he was doing it for free, using his own saddle stock and pack string.

We compared notes. In response to his questions, I explained how and why I was serving as I did on a contract—almost as a forest patrol officer but without enforcement authority. Then, recognizing competence and professionalism when I saw it, I noted he labored under so such federal government employment restrictions as I did. “You should be a seasonal employee of the Forest Service,” I told him.

For the next dozen years he was, epitomizing the “forest ranger” on wilderness trails as he and his saddle and pack stock patrolled the Deschutes National Forest third of the Three Sisters Wilderness, always available and able to handle any assignment or challenge that came his way. Jim and I worked closely together, sometimes against unexpected and unnecessary odds, to do a full range of real jobs well. Jim had great people skills, and related especially well to the many equestrian wilderness visitors.

Years later, after our Three Sisters Wilderness years were behind us, Jim and I sectioned the Pacific Crest National Scenic Trail through Oregon—from the California line to the Washington State line–together. And, when my book Three Sisters Wilderness: A History was published by The History Press in 2021, Jim was the wilderness ranger on the cover and in half a dozen of the photographs which illustrate the book.

An Illustrated Guide to Impacts of Different Agency Policies with Regard to Chainsaws in Wilderness: Guest Post by Cindy Chojnacky

This was submitted as a comment to an article posted June 27 by Steve Wilent titled “Forest Service denies pleas to chainsaw logjams in the Pasayten Wilderness.” It is running as separate post to include photos which show examples of neglected trails in Forest Service wilderness. The author has also written on the “perfect storm” of climate change-damaged trails and less field presence by the Forest Service on this blog inspired by fire-damaged trails in the Gila Wilderness (https://www.wildernessneed.org/the-gila-wilderness-at-age-95-losing-a-legacy/)”

WILDERNESS COMMENT

Based on personal experience, the Forest Service’s strict interpretation of Wilderness Act to use only “minimum tool”…e.g., only crosscuts in wilderness—is resulting in many legacy trails becoming lost in Forest Service wilderness. Here are some examples.

White Cloud Wilderness, Idaho—big avalanche to cross into a lake basin.

 

In Sawtooth Wilderness in Idaho, a legacy trail loop suitable for stock  followed Big Queens-Little Queens rivers. The 1992 Idaho City Complex Fire burned Johnson Creek Trail connecting the two river trails; resulting overgrowth of ceanothus is now chest high for two miles of trail crossing the creek. A trail crew with power brushcutters could clean up the trail in a few days.

In northern part of Sawtooth Wilderness, lots of down trees on Redfish Ridge Trail

A few miles north on same trail near Redfish Lake as soon as we passed the wilderness boundary we saw excellent clearing of the trail—open to mountain bikes—with chain saws.

One more example from the East: down logs in Mary’s River Wilderness on the George Washington-Jefferson National Forest in Virginia. A wilderness manager told me a lack of certified hand-sawyers was forcing abandonment of certain trails.

By contrast, the National Park Service uses chainsaws if needed. For instance, only crosscut saws are used in the  Saguaro Wilderness near Tucson because the area is small and minimal “logging” (cutting out logs) is needed. By contrast, in Olympic National Park (Daniel J. Evans Wilderness), chainsaws are freely used to clear the huge old- growth Douglas-fir and western red cedar. This is an extreme example of a person-size chainsaw cut many years ago!

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) also uses some discretion in wilderness to carry out its main mission which is wildlife protection. In the Kofa and Cabeza Prieta wilderness areas in southern Arizona, FWS uses “cherry stem” (excluded from wilderness) roads to drive and maintain water sources, improves natural tanks (like the one below) and even hauls water to human-made tanks and pools in dry periods for desert bighorn sheep.

All three agencies base their management practices on Wilderness Act: Section 4. (c) Prohibition of Certain Uses, which states no motorized equipment in wilderness.

However, Park Service and FWS seem to make liberal use of a disclaimer which starts the list of restrictions: “except as necessary to meet minimum requirements for the administration of the area for the purpose of this Act.” According to Section 2. (a), the purpose of wilderness is the use and enjoyment of the American people. We think it is necessary to keep trails open for public “use and enjoyment,” and so does the Park Service. Fish and Wildlife Service reasons that its main purpose for large wilderness areas it manages (which are also wildlife refuges) is wildlife, hence a broad interpretation of the wilderness restrictions.

The wilderness “purpose statement” in Wilderness Act of 1964 comes in where Congress explains why it was establishing the wilderness preservation system. The Act’s STATEMENT OF POLICY SECTION 2 (a) 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 have argued that focus only on wilderness quality or character—the means—if ignoring the overall purpose or end—wilderness experience— could  treat the wilderness visitor as a threat or nuisance.

Many environmental groups that fight agency exemptions such as chainsaws for clearing excessive down trees after fire or microbursts see themselves as protectors of wilderness quality or character. However, they have a conflict of interest on this issue since they are funded by donations from the public solicited for various battles to “protect the wilderness” from allegedly harmful federal agency management practices. This is an easy sell to people who want to support wilderness emotionally and financially but may not know much about policy details of the Wilderness Act.

Current Status of the Boundary Waters Motorized Towboat Controversy

A towboat operator tied a canoe to an overhead rack ahead of taking a camping party into the BWCA. TONY KENNEDY, STAR TRIBUNE

Ah.. Wilderness.  Based on the ongoing discussion here, I looked up the Act and at amendments.

There seems to be a 1978 amendment on the Boundary Waters that said existing motorized boat use could continue.

Then I looked up the current status and it looks like there is a court case to reduce the number of motorized towboats.

“Older visitors and visitors with limited mobility-use towboats, and an injunction would risk reducing these visitors’ opportunities to experience the BWCAW,” Brasel wrote in her 27-page decision on the injunction. “Moreover, a total ban would likely disrupt Forest Service’s work of gathering and analyzing data regarding motorboat and towboat usage.”

The judge had ordered Wilderness Watch and the U.S. Forest Service, which manages the BWCAW, to work out an agreement on towboat use before a trial is held. But the two sides so far haven’t been able to agree on how much use is too much, and Brasel said she wouldn’t make that ruling at this point.

“Because the record is completely muddled as to how such a limit should be calculated, the Court declines to pick what would be an arbitrary number,” Brasel noted. “But a limit may be appropriate upon a further‐developed record.”

To me,  it seems like the court case should start a public process in deciding how many boats and where, with NEPA and public comment.  Such  decisions, about federal lands,  would be best informed by all the experiences, views and research that can be brought to bear not a few folks in a closed room. That’s how it often works.. litigation kicks off a public process, and doesn’t replace one.

“Proforestation” It Aint What It Claims To Be

‘Proforestation’ separates people from forests

AKA: Ignorance and Arrogance Still Reign Supreme at the Sierra Club.

I picked this up from Nick Smith’s Newsletter (sign up here)
Emphasis added by myself as follows:
1)  Brown Text for items NOT SUPPORTED by science with long term and geographically extensive validation.                                                                                                                                                        2) Bold Green Text for items SUPPORTED by science with long term and geographically extensive validation.
3) >>>Bracketed Italics for my added thoughts based on 59 years of experience and review of a vast range of literature going back to way before the internet.<<<

“Proforestation” is a relatively new term in the environmental community. The Sierra Club defines it as: “extending protections so as to allow areas of previously-logged forest to mature, removing vast amounts of atmospheric carbon and recovering their ecological and carbon storage potential.”          >>>Apparently, after 130 years of existence, the Sierra Club still doesn’t know much about plant physiology, the carbon cycle or the increased risk of calamitous wild fire spread caused by the close proximity of stems and competition driven mortality in unmanged stands (i.e. the science of plant physiology regarding competition, limited resources and fire spread physics). Nor have they thought out the real risk of permanent destruction of the desired ecosystems nor the resulting impact on climate change.<<<

Not only must we preserve untouched forests, proponents argue, but we must also walk away from previously-managed forests too. People should be entirely separate from forest ecology and succession. >>>More abject ignorance and arrogant woke policy based only on vacuous wishful thinking.<<<

Except humans have managed forests for millennia. In North America, Indigenous communities managed forests and sustained its resources for at least 8,000 years prior to European settlement. It is true people have not always managed forests sustainably. Forest practices of the late 19th century are a good example.                                                                                                                                                 >>>Yes, and the political solution pushed on us by the Sierra Club and other faux conservationists beginning with false assumptions about the Northern Spotted Owl was to throw out the continuously improving science (i.e. Continuous Process Improvement [CPI]).  The concept of using the science to create sustainable practices and laws that regulated the bad practices driven by greed and arrogance wasn’t even considered seriously.  As always, the politicians listened to the well heeled squeaky voters.  Now, their arrogant ignorance has given us National Ashtrays, destruction of soils, and an ever increasing probability that great acreages of forest ecosystems will be lost to the generations that follow who will also have to cope with the exacerbated climate change.  So here we are, in 30+/- years the Faux Conservationists have made things worse than the greedy timber barons ever could have.  And the willfully blind can’t seem to see what they have done. Talk about arrogance.<<<

Forest management provides tools to correct past mistakes and restore ecosystems. But Proforestation even seems to reject forest restoration that helps return a forest to a healthy state, including controlling invasive species, maintaining tree diversity, returning forest composition and structure to a more natural state.

Proforestation is not just a philosophical exercise. The goal is to ban active forest management on public lands. It has real policy implications for the future management (or non-management) of forests and how we deal with wildfires, climate change and other disturbances.

We’ve written before about how this concept applies to so-called “carbon reserves.” Now, powerful and well-funded anti-forestry groups are pressuring the Biden Administration to set-aside national forests and other federally-owned lands under the guise of “protecting mature and old-growth” trees.

In its recent white paper on Proforestation (read more here), the Society of American Foresters writes that “preservation can be appropriate for unique protected areas, but it has not been demonstrated as a solution for carbon storage or climate change across all forested landscapes.”

Proforestation doesn’t work when forests convert from carbon sinks into carbon sources. A United Nations report pointed out that at least 10 World Heritage sites – the places with the highest formal environmental protections on the planet – are net sources of carbon pollution. This includes the iconic Yosemite National Park.

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) recognizes active forest management will yield the highest carbon benefits over the long term because of its ability to mitigate carbon emitting disturbance events and store carbon in harvested wood products. Beyond carbon, forest management ensures forests continue to provide assets like clean water, wildlife habitat, recreation, and economic activity.
>>>(i.e. TRUE SUSTAINABILITY)<<<

Forest management offers strategies to manage forests for carbon sequestration and long-term storage.Proforestation rejects active stewardship that can not only help cool the planet, but help meet the needs of people, wildlife and ecosystems. You can expect to see this debate intensify in 2023.

A Tangled Web Indeed: Wilderness, the Amenity Economy, and the Environment

From the Canyon Country Zephyr

I don’t mean to pick on Congressperson DeGette, she is just echoing what many have said,  but reading this quote:

“If we’re going to be serious about combatting the climate crisis, we absolutely must start by preserving more of our public lands,” DeGette said. “Those of us who have been to the magical places included in this bill know how special they are, and why they must be protected for future generations to enjoy. While preserving more of our public lands is important for our environment and economy, it’s also important to the millions of outdoor enthusiasts who visit these majestic areas every year.”

It reminds me a bit of the piece on the Virtuals and Physicals last Friday. Words can do anything. In words, you can say preserving public lands is good for climate. In reality, though, renewable energy projects, powerlines, and mining for minerals needed for low carbon technologies do not lead to “preservation.” So if we were really being honest, we wouldn’t say that.  Or perhaps again it’s a different degree of literalness needed when we interpret politicians’ statements.

But when I saw “preservation” and “millions of outdoor enthusiasts”, I thought of Conundrum Hot Springs and the broader issue of how so-called “industrialized recreation” fits into the concept of “preservation.”

Which reminded me of this quote found in Jim Stiles’ piece here from 2008 in the Canyon Country Zephyr.  The Zephyr, like TSW, is run via contributions, so if you appreciate their reporting, please donate. The whole piece is worth a read:

Almost a decade ago, Bill Hedden, then head of the Grand Canyon Trust’s Arches/Canyonlands office, now its executive director, wrote an essay for the Trust’s Advocate magazine. His observations about the ever-growing recreation ‘amenities economy’ could not have been more compelling or insightful.

In part he said:

“Throughout the region…visitation has grown by more than 400 percent since 1980. This surge of interest has coincided with a proliferation of new recreation technologies–some exotic like modern ATVs, humvees, mountain bikes, climbing gear, jet skis and hangliders; and others prosaic like water filters, sunscreen and dry suits. Armed with these new toys, today’s legions of visitors can exploit every niche in familiar areas and enter terrain that previously was protected by remoteness…And though it is common to blame the destruction on a small percentage of lawless visitors, my experience brings to mind the old joke that a mere 99 percent of users give a bad name to all the rest. Make no mistake–we are in this together.

“The Grand Canyon Trust has just completed a major strategic planning exercise… Everywhere we looked, natural resource professionals agreed that industrial-strength recreation holds more potential to disrupt natural processes on a broad scale than just about anything else. It’s a very tough problem affecting all of us. We will be actively searching for ways to deal with it.”

But that was in 1999. The phrase, “amenities economy” was just becoming familiar to environmentalists. They were searching for a response to rural Westerners’ claim that wilderness designation and other restrictions on the West’s public lands were destroying its economy—an economy based in the traditional extractive industries like mining, ranching and timber.

Some within the conservation movement latched onto recreation and tourism—and the amenities that they demanded, as a “clean” economic solution. But Hedden’s concerns, in 2008, are almost antiquated notions, even to his own organization.

Hedden said that in 1999. And here we are in 2022, just yesterday wondering whether better maps would lead to overuse. And from this piece, also by Stiles:

But in 1998, as environmentalists grew increasingly frustrated by their efforts to protect wildlands in the West, their strategies shifted. At a landmark ‘wilderness mentoring’ conference that May, attended by scores of the country’s environmentalist leaders, a more aggressive, down-and-dirty strategy was proposed. A prominently displayed quotation by Michael Carroll, now of The Wilderness Society, established the tone and direction of all that would come later:

“Car companies and makers of sports drinks use wilderness to sell their products. We have to market wilderness as a product people want to have.”

That, in its most succinct essence, was the theme of the conference. While the organizers of the event paid tribute to the wilderness activists who had come before, clearly the purpose of the meeting was to propose a new approach. “Although it is important to pioneer new wilderness strategies,” the report explained almost as an afterthought, “we must do so with knowledge of what has come before.”

With that token nod to the “importance of history” and to the “philosophical and political contexts” of the wilderness movement, the conference explored the new territories of salesmanship, marketing and media manipulation to win the legislative wilderness battle. One might think you were being taught how to sell a new Buick.

By 2003, GCT’s Hedden, seemed ready to accept and even embrace the changes. In a Zephyr interview he admitted, “We’ve had some of the most spectacular country in the world, and no one else in it. The fact that those days are just about over is sad, but there are many more people in the world, and they have found this place, and there’s no keeping them away.” And so, suddenly, the idea of embracing an unbridled recreation/amenities economy that had once worried the most enthusiastic supporters of wilderness, achieved political, if not moral, acceptability.

 

CORE Act Gets Stymied in Senate

We’ve discussed the CORE Act before here.  and in Patrick McKay’s guest post.Here’s a story from CPR yesterday. Hopefully Patrick has been following the details and can bring us up to date.

I wonder whether this is the time to put more acres into Wilderness. It seems to me that this bill has gone forward for years-  and perhaps Covid-enhanced recreation, and the changes due to AGW (anthropogenic global warming), plus the need for domestically produced energy, plus attention to Native American burning,  might cause people to rethink what goes in to Wilderness designation and the other designations in the bill.  There might be opportunities for renewable energy infrastructure foregone.  And what about the motorized community, who seems to be missing from this coverage (but not from TSW)?

For example, designating an area as Wilderness can lead to different fire management strategies.. if AGW is indeed leading to climate-induced holocausts, then would we want to reduce/make more difficult suppression and pre-suppression strategies (put fewer tools in the toolkit, or make it harder to get them out)?  Here’s what Greg Aplet of The Wilderness Society has to say what activities are OK in Wilderness.  I generally trust what Greg has to say, but I’d be interested in what other people think.

It makes me wonder if this Wilderness bill is more about symbolism or political solidarity-signalling, or perhaps backscratching in some form, than on-the-ground reality, or whether the concept of Wilderness perhaps needs to be rethought in light of the above changes in our understanding, and the science we’re finding out about everything (fire, fuels, climate change, recreation impacts,  traditional ecological knowledge, and so on).

The pieces I’ve read sound a bit like a press release from the Senators.

Sen. John Hickenlooper, a member of the committee and a sponsor of the bill, stressed throughout the debate the community-driven nature of the bill, saying it could serve as a model for how public land should be crafted.

“The entire local community, a large part of the state of Colorado, supports these designations and recognize that this is the future and best use for these lands,” he said.

“This is exactly the kind of local, carefully constructed agreement that you’ll find throughout the CORE Act,” Bennet said. “And it’s more evidence, I think, to our Senate colleagues that this bill wasn’t written in Washington. It was written in Colorado from the ground up to ensure that every line in this bill reflects local values and local interest.”

It seems like from our previous discussions that there have also been concerns from the motorized community, but that was not reflected in the article. It’s almost as if  some writers think that what (some) politicians say must be true and not worthy of some skepticism.  I’m pretty skeptical of what any politician says, myself.

It would be pretty impressive if everyone in those areas agrees.

.. but in an earlier story in Colorado Politics, the local Congressperson claimed:

After the hearing, U.S. Rep. Lauren Boebert, a Silt Republican who opposes the CORE Act, released a statement saying she hasn’t been consulted about the bill even though roughly two-thirds of the land it affects are in her 3rd Congressional District, which covers most of Colorado’s Western Slope.

“The CORE Act is a partisan land-grab promoted by big-city Democrats who aren’t affected by the land-use bureaucracy that they are shoving down rural Colorado’s throat,” she said.

“While locking up land may sound good to the swamp, it doesn’t work for the people who actually live there.”

Now I get that Boebert is fringy and prone to excessive partisan vitriol, but still I think it is a bit of an overstatement to think that “the entire local community” doesn’t include their elected representative- and she hadn’t been consulted (?) but “everyone agrees”.  And here’s another one:

Over a decade ago, rancher Bill Fales was one of many Coloradans who gathered and talked about how to protect the lands outside his backdoor. He said he was discouraged by the tie vote.

“That’s exactly what we have been doing for 13 years,” he said. “We’ve adjusted the boundaries, we’ve adjusted the language, we’ve worked as hard as possible to make to work for our community. It’s why it has virtually unanimous support in our community.”

If you read this story, wouldn’t you want to hear from someone with concerns (besides the aforementioned Congressperson)?  After all, there is a quote from someone who agrees (Bill Fales).  I’m not sure from this news coverage we get both sides of the issue fairly explained.  But what I’m really curious about is why that has been the case for this issue so consistently, even pre-Boebert.

Impacts of Wilderness Designation on Fire Suppression? Request for Information

Freelance photographer Joe Randall and his wife have captured some amazing photos of the Decker fire near Salida. The fire burned more than 5,000 acres as of early Friday, Oct. 4, 2019. Visit his Digital Art Co. Facebook page here. This fire was a Fire Use fire that began in Wilderness.

I’ve never seen this written about much before, but I could have missed it. A person on Wildfire Today mentioned that an area being in a Wilderness Study Area made suppression more complex. So I became curious about Wilderness designations and their potential impacts on fire suppression, especially since we have many acres proposed for Wilderness in a bill here in Colorado. I don’t know if Recommended Wilderness in Forest Plans have to follow the same rules.

So I googled and due to their always-mysterious search algorithms ended up with this specific write-up from the Pike and San Isabel National Forest (and Cimarron and Comanche National Grasslands, but I don’t think they have any Wilderness).

It seems like you can do many of the same suppression activities, but you have to weigh the need against Wilderness values, and get approvals. I’m interested in whether other Forests have similar sets of guidance, and how these operate in practice.

At one time it seemed that letting fires burn was important for “naturalness”, but if climate is making fires “unnatural” then it’s not as simple.

As this wilderness.net pieces says..

Other reasons besides public sentiment may also perpetuate fire suppression. The small size of many wilderness areas results in natural ignitions outside of wilderness being suppressed before they can burn into wilderness, for example. With increases in settlement within the wildland urban interface, the risks of fire escaping onto adjacent lands, unnaturally intense fires burning as a result of unnatural fuel loads, and unacceptable smoke impacts to surrounding areas are also very real.

A person could say “natural” is a function of a)ignition source, b) weather/climate and c) naturalness of fuel loads. If we argue that both b and c are commonly unnatural, then it’s hard to argue that a makes much of a difference.

So here are my questions..
1. People who have been managing fires, have you seen instances in which managing for Wilderness fires worked or didn’t work? Did the Wilderness rules themselves or something about their implementation make it more difficult to suppress the fire out of Wilderness?
2. Does each Forest have a different policy, or it is pretty common across all Wildernesses?
3. When an area becomes RW, does the fire suppression policy move to Wilderness rules?

Thanks, everyone!

How to get rid of non-native fish in wilderness

Utah Division of Wildlife

Since we had such fun discussing use of chainsaws in wilderness and eliminating wolves from wilderness, here’s another example of challenges to managing under the Wilderness Act. The Lolo National Forest is seeking comments on the North Fork Blackfoot River Native Fish Restoration Project which is located in the Scapegoat Wilderness.  They have prepared an Environmental Assessment.

The project would authorize Montana Fish, Wildlife & Parks (FWP) to implement fish management and stocking actions within the wilderness that would establish a secure population of native trout, replacing an existing hybrid population.

To restore and secure this population, the project proposes the following actions; application of a piscicide, rotenone, to eradicate the non-native fish species; use of motorized equipment such as a boat motor, generator, and a helicopter to transport equipment, supplies, and fish for stocking; temporary development of structures or installations; and use of chemicals (pesticides or herbicides). Additionally, public access in the area would be closed for 7-10 days during the late summer of 2021 to reduce user conflicts with management actions.

The Forest Service has assessed the suitability of the proposed activities in the Scapegoat Wilderness through a process called a “minimum requirements analysis.” This is a process used to identify, analyze, and recommend management actions that are the minimum necessary for wilderness administration, as directed by the Wilderness Act of 1964.

From the linked article:

Opponents challenged the plan’s use of motorized equipment in a federal wilderness area where such machinery is typically prohibited, the idea of stocking otherwise fishless waters in wilderness, use of fish poison and the potential of harming non-target fish in the area.

There doesn’t seem to be much disagreement with the project purpose, but resistance to how they would do it.  The exception where “mechanical transport” and “structure or installation” would be allowed by the Wilderness Act is:  “except as necessary to meet minimum requirements for the administration of the area for the purpose of this Act.”  It seems like their argument that they need motorized access is weak (see photo), but if chemicals are the only way to remove the non-native species, should they not do it?

Then there is the requirement to maintain viable populations of native species on national forests, which might for some species (maybe amphibians that evolved without fish predators) require them to do it.