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This is the first in a weekly series profiling the areas proposed by the Hidden Gems campaign for federal wilderness designation. The campaign, led by Carbondale's Wilderness Workshop, calls for more than 400,000 acres to be protected as wilderness. Most of the land is in the White River and Gunnison national forests, and includes areas in Pitkin, Gunnison, Eagle and Summit counties. An act of the U.S. Congress is required to designate new wilderness.
Reacting to both criticism and constructive advice, Sen. Jon Tester revealed a thick list of changes to his Forest Jobs and Recreation Act during a visit to Missoula on Friday.
In all, Tester proposed 21 changes to S. 1470. Many involve assurances that 10,000 acres a year of timber would be cut, with proper scientific monitoring and protection from excessive litigation.
Last month, U.S. Forest Service officials complained that the acreage might be an unsustainable amount of logging. Tester responded that the agency needs to change the way it manages timber.
LAS VEGAS, Nev. - They are pioneers of conservation in Nevada, men and women who saw the warning signs 40 years ago that Red Rock Canyon needed conservation protection. Now, they believe Gold Butte needs similar help.
Back in the 1970s, Terri Robertson, Las Vegas outreach coordinator for Friends of Gold Butte, says she had no idea Las Vegas would grow to nearly 2 million people. But even when the city's population was more like 100,000, she says it was clear that Red Rock's natural landscape and cultural sites needed to be preserved.
The push is on to formally designate of 32,557 acres of the Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore as wilderness.
The designation request was made in bills introduced Tuesday in Congress.
U.S. Sen. Carl Levin, D-Detroit, and U.S. Rep. Pete Hoekstra, R-Holland, are each sponsoring legislation to make the change, something both said has strong public and National Park Service support.
The bills balance wilderness protection and provide access to the park's Lake Michigan and other beaches by both water and road.
PORTLAND - Thousands of acres of Central Oregon land once occupied by the infamous Rajneeshpuram commune would be protected under legislation introduced Thursday by Oregon Sens. Ron Wyden and Jeff Merkley.
The Cathedral Rock and Horse Heaven Wilderness Act would preserve almost 16,500 acres of land as wilderness.
About half of it would come from a proposed land swap between the U.S. Bureau of Land Management (BLM) and a nondenominational Christian organization that runs a summer camp at the former ranch once controlled by followers of Indian guru Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh.
Oregon Democratic Sens. Ron Wyden and Jeff Merkley introduced legislation yesterday that would expand federal wilderness areas in central Oregon, including land once owned by a controversial religious sect implicated in a bioterror attack.
The legislation would enable the Bureau of Land Management to engage in a land exchange that would create two consolidated wilderness areas totaling 16,000 acres.
WASHINGTON - A land swap involving the former Rajneeshee commune in Jefferson County would create two new wilderness areas, under a bill introduced Thursday by U.S. Sens. Ron Wyden and Jeff Merkley.
The Oregon Democrats signed on to a proposal first unveiled last fall by the Oregon Natural Desert Association to create the Horse Heaven and Cathedral Rock wilderness areas in northeast Jefferson County, spanning about 16,000 acres.
Building on last year's successful efforts to preserve more than 200,000 acres of Oregon lands as wilderness, U.S. Senators Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) and Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.) have introduced legislation to preserve another 16,000 acres near Cathedral Rock and Horse Heaven by swapping land with private landholders, including Christian-based summer camp, Young Life, which has rights to land once occupied by the followers of Baghwan Shree Rajneesh.
ANTELOPE, Ore. - On Thursday, a bill to create two new federal wilderness areas in Central Oregon was introduced by Senator Ron Wyden and Representative Jeff Merkley. Cathedral Rock and Horse Heaven are not what people might normally think of as pristine wilderness. For years, this federal land has been nestled between parcels of private ranch land and a Christian youth camp, so it's been hard to get to without trespassing.
Don't call Veronica Egan a lady. Call her what she calls herself: a great old broad. As executive director since 2002 of Great Old Broads for Wilderness, an environmental group based in Durango, Colo., Ms. Egan encourages everyone to become a "Broad."
Members don't have to be an over-50 woman - although most are. "Broadness," Egan says, "is a state of mind." You can also join if you're a younger woman - you'll be known as a Training Broad. Or even if you're a guy: You'll be a "Great Old Bro."
