During the late 1800s my ancestors arrived in Warren County from Sweden and like other immigrants here they were industrious people. My great great grandfather John Hofstedt made his living as a tannery laborer in Stoneham, as did his son and my great uncle Peter Hofstedt. By 1900 great great grandfather Hofstedt owned outright his own home in Stoneham (a house that still stands today along Route 6). My great grandfather Frederick Johnson also settled in Stoneham after arriving in America, and worked for the railroad. Tanning was a very important industry of the region at that time and relied upon the surrounding resources of Penn's Woods to prosper, like many industries of today.
In 1923, the Allegheny National Forest was established on lands in Elk, Forest, McKean, and Warren Counties -- where the great tanning industry had once thrived -- for the purposes of timber production and watershed protection. Today there are no longer any tanneries as the resource that drove that industry, old-growth hemlock trees, was hastily overexploited a century ago. But there is still an important wood products industry that derives benefits from the multiple-use of the Allegheny, as we all know. However, it is not just wood products from the Allegheny that enriches the lives of citizens today.
Forty-five years ago last month, a bipartisan group of lawmakers agreed to legislation that would have a lasting impact on our nation's public lands -- not by changing them, but by making sure some portion of these magnificent wild places would remain undeveloped and unexploited in perpetuity. The Wilderness Act, signed into law September 3, 1964, was statutory acknowledgement that America's wild landscapes helped shape us as a people and that there is significant value in ensuring future generations will always have the opportunity to experience some part of the original America.
Thanks to the Wilderness Act, stunning natural places like the Desolation Wilderness in California, Washington's Olympic Wilderness, the Boundary Waters Wilderness in Minnesota, and closer to home West Virginia's 50,000-acre Cranberry Wilderness will always be around for our children and theirs to use and enjoy.
"If future generations are to remember us with gratitude rather than contempt, we must leave them more than the miracles of technology," President Lyndon Johnson said at the bill signing ceremony, "We must leave them a glimpse of the world as it was in the beginning, not just after we got through with it."
In the 45 years since the Wilderness Act was passed, ordinary citizens, working through their elected representatives, have employed the law to permanently protect nearly 110 million acres within America's National Wilderness Preservation System. Thanks to support and leadership from both Republicans and Democrats, Congress has since passed 140 bills preserving wild land in 44 states and Puerto Rico, including the Hickory Creek and Allegheny Islands Wilderness Areas here in Pennsylvania. In addition to being the 45th anniversary of the Wilderness Act this year, it is also the 25th anniversary of the Pennsylvania Wilderness Act -- legislation which gave Pennsylvanians our only federal wilderness areas to date.
The Pennsylvania Wilderness Act was signed by President Reagan on October 30, 1984. It was the product of eleven long years of debate and compromise. Then first-term Senator Arlen Specter voted for the legislation, stating "this is not only a great day for Pennsylvania but for our entire nation." The late Senator John Heinz went further, observing "this historic legislation is an effective balance among the competing commercial, environmental, and recreational benefits to be derived from the area."
The latest additions to the wilderness system occurred this past March, when President Obama signed the bipartisan Omnibus Public Land Management Act, which included wilderness protection for two million acres across nine states from California to West Virginia.
Recognizing the profound importance of the Wilderness Act, this August the U.S. Senate passed a resolution commemorating its 45th Anniversary. The resolution states that the Senate "commends the extraordinary work of the individuals and organizations involved in building the National Wilderness Preservation System; and is grateful for the wilderness, a tremendous asset the United States continues to preserve as a gift to future generations..." The resolution also acknowledges important contributions that Pennsylvanians Howard Zahniser of Tionesta and U.S. Rep. John Saylor of Johnstown made to establishing the wilderness system.
Though we gratefully celebrate the 25th anniversary of the Pennsylvania Wilderness Act, we must also acknowledge that less than two percent of the Allegheny is permanently protected. Other national forests around the East have on average 11 percent of their lands designated as wilderness. Friends of Allegheny Wilderness has proposed designating 54,460 acres in our popular Citizens' Wilderness Proposal for Pennsylvania's Allegheny National Forest. During the Forest Service's recently completed Forest Plan revision, more than 6,800 of a total of 8,200 public comments greater than 80 percent specifically advocated for FAW and the Citizens' Wilderness Proposal.
Some are uneasy about designating additional portions of the Allegheny as wilderness, believing it will lead, incrementally, over time, to eliminating motorized and mechanized recreation and timber production from the entire forest. Clearly, there are indeed people who would love to see FAW and the Citizens' Wilderness Proposal used to establish a milieu or synergistic effect to ultimately help them achieve broader anti-logging goals. However, it was never the intention of the framers of the Wilderness Act to have their magnanimous legislation used in such a cynical way. The Citizens' Wilderness Proposal precisely, meticulously delineates that about 12 percent of the forest be protected as wilderness. FAW will work to ensure that our wilderness efforts are not misused by far-away ideologues who perhaps have never even set foot in Pennsylvania, let alone the Allegheny.
This 45th year of the Wilderness Act and 25th year of the Pennsylvania Wilderness Act are anniversaries worth celebrating, for wilderness is much of what defines us as Americans. Rep. Saylor for example stated as he introduced the Wilderness Act into the Congress in 1956 that "we Americans are the people we are largely because we have had the influence of the wilderness on our lives." As we head out to enjoy the brilliant days of autumn over the next several weeks, many of us will be hunting, hiking, camping, fishing, paddling, or picnicking in some of the special wild places bequeathed to us by those who years ago had the foresight to preserve and protect some of our most treasured landscapes. Shouldn't we all work to ensure that all areas of the Allegheny deserving of such protection receive it?
Ten years after the Wilderness Act was signed, another president acknowledged the critical importance of our wild lands. President Gerald Ford said, "I believe that the Wilderness System serves a basic need of all Americans, even those who may never visit a wilderness area the preservation of a vital element of our heritage...Wilderness preservation insures that a central facet of our Nation can still be realized, not just remembered."
As I sit here writing this in the serenity of a beautiful sunny day at the top of Oakland Cemetery, overlooking the verdant hills and valleys of Warren, where my great great grandfather Hofstedt and great grandfather Johnson and their families were laid to rest, I have a sense of connectedness with my family's and the Allegheny region's intertwined histories. Based on my experiences of hundreds of visits to the Hickory Creek and Allegheny Islands Wildernesses and our proposed areas over the years, I feel confident that even though I never met my ancestors who scraped a living out of these woods, they would approve of FAW's approach to permanently protect forest industry jobs, recreation, and significant additional wilderness to benefit all future generations of people and wildlife alike in the land they loved and adopted as their own one hundred and forty years ago.
Kirk Johnson is executive director for the Warren-based non-profit organization Friends of Allegheny Wilderness. He is originally from Rew, Pennsylvania.
