Wilderness News

Aldo Leopold once wrote, "Conservation is getting nowhere because it is incompatible with our Abrahamic concept of land. We abuse land because we regard it as a commodity belonging to us. When we see land as a community to which we belong, we may begin to use it with love and respect.

A bill that would create the nation's first national grasslands wilderness in southwestern South Dakota may hinge on the support of a handful of ranchers who are concerned with how such a designation would impact their rights to graze on public lands.

Sen. Tim Johnson's (D-S.D.) proposal to give 48,000 acres of the Buffalo Gap National Grassland the highest level of federal protections enjoys strong support from the Forest Service, American Indian tribes, and hunting and environmental groups who recreate in the area's sweeping prairie landscapes and rugged buttes.

Desert-dwellers are making a pitch to President Obama as his "America's Great Outdoors Initiative" listening tour stops in the Golden State this week. They want to stress that the desert has much more to offer than what most people see from their car windows.

Monica Argandona, Southern California Conservation Director for the California Wilderness Coalition, says many people mistakenly think of the desert as a big wasteland.

What brought me to Idaho years ago were its wild animals, wild rivers and especially its wild lands. As a hunter, I marvel at the abundance of game animals and at the beautiful public places to hunt. My favorite places to hunt are where the roads end and the trails begin. Like many Idahoans, I leave my truck (and ATV) behind, grab my bow and head out on foot into the high country.

It has been annoying to watch the preservation of the most diverse and beautiful land in Doña Ana County be hijacked by the canard that our safety and the security along our border with Mexico will be threatened, especially since passage of the Organ Mountains-Desert Peaks Wilderness Act would make our borders safer.

Sen. Jon Tester isn't giving up any ground on the four provisions he included in the Forest Jobs and Recreation Act. The Montana legislator reiterated last week that logging will not be stripped from the final version of the bill, which he introduced nearly a year ago.

Besides timber, other provisions cover wilderness, recreation and restoration.

"In the end, if we're missing those components, the bill will not move," Tester said during a telephone interview on Thursday. "We need to get it passed. That's why we're working so hard to do it."

A senate bill that would turn about 940,000 acres along Route 66 east of Ludlow into a national monument is currently being scrutinized in the U.S. Senate's Energy and Natural Resources Committee.

In the meantime, more than 60 elected officials, cities and business leaders have given their endorsement to the California Desert Protection Act, including Barstow Mayor Joe Gomez.

On June 9, Sens. Lamar Alexander and Bob Corker introduced the Tennessee Wilderness Act of 2010. We Tennesseans are fortunate to have senators who value and appreciate our natural heritage and our recreational resources.

Their introduction of the bill is appreciated by everyone who hikes, horseback rides, hunts, fishes and simply enjoys the beautiful natural areas. There will be 19,568 acres of scenic mountain lands protected in six areas, all currently owned by the government and part of the Cherokee National Forest, both north and south of the Smokies.

I recently returned from a short vacation, and was disappointed to learn that the Senate Committee on Energy and National Resources charged with marking up Sen. Tester's Forest Jobs and Recreation Act had tried to strip key forest management components from the bill and make it a pure wilderness bill. Many of us who are proponents of more land being protected as designated wilderness might have preferred a "clean" wilderness bill.

U.S. Rep. Diana DeGette and a couple of Pitkin County commissioners will saddle up this week to take a look at lands in the Thompson Creek area, outside of Carbondale, that the congresswoman has proposed as Wilderness.

The unusual, horseback site visit is expected to include DeGette and some of her staff, and commissioners Jack Hatfield and George Newman.