The Local Value of Wilderness
Local input is a hallmark of
democracy. Good laws should and do bubble up from neighborhoods,
country churches, and bar stools, just as bad ideas are often killed
by the folks who have to live with the results.
That’s why, if you’re running
for public office, it’s a smart idea to say that you’re in
support of local decisions. Imagine the alternative: “I’m from
the distant government and I’m here to tell you how to live your
life.” You probably wouldn’t win many votes.
But that alternative is precisely
what our lone U.S. Congressman, Greg Gianforte, did last month, when
he announced that he’s introducing legislation to remove
protections from a whole class of public land in Montana without
holding a single local meeting in the affected areas.
Specifically, Gianforte is
proposing to “release” nearly 700,000 acres of federal land in
Montana designated as wilderness study areas (WSAs) to the agencies,
the U.S. Forest Service and the BLM, that already manage the various
properties. Gianforte’s legislation is similar to that introduced
by Montana’s junior Senator, Steve Daines, but Gianforte’s goes
further, by including WSAs managed by the BLM as candidates to lose
protection.
In Valley County, Gianforte’s
bill would “release” the Bitter Creek Wilderness Study Area, some
59,000 lonely acres just south of the Canadian line roughly between
Opheim and Theony. Wilderness study areas generally, and Bitter Creek
specifically, are particularly troublesome designations. They were
designated way back in the 1970s as federal lands that exhibit some
elements of wilderness: they’re generally unroaded, they offer
pristine viewscapes and the opportunity to get away from modern
contrivances such as powerlines and compressor stations. They exhibit
most of the qualities that defined wilderness in the 1964 Wilderness
Act (and as you read this, see if it characterizes Bitter Creek): “A
wilderness, in contrast with those areas where man and his own works
dominate the landscape, is hereby recognized as an area where the
earth and its community of life are untrammeled by man, where man
himself is a visitor who does not remain.”
WSA typically don’t have the
soaring peaks or big trees or clear trout water of designated
wilderness areas, but they do have important benefits, such as
wildlife security habitat, intact native range, and accessible
contiguous public land. Most traditional uses, including grazing,
hunting, hiking, camping, and fishing, are allowed on WSAs.
These WSAs have existed in a sort
of administrative limbo for 40 years – not remarkable or remote or
sacred enough to be elevated to full-fledged wilderness, but still
cherished for their primitive nature. The “study” in their title
is part of their problem, and Gianforte isn’t wrong to address it.
They haven’t been studied for years. Instead, they exist as a sort
of thumb in the eye of folks who would like to open the land for the
full range of multiple uses. And the “study” designation isn’t
satisfying for conservationists who would like to see the wilderness
protection made permanent.
If you’ve ever hunted or hiked in
Bitter Creek, you might have experienced some of the primitive nature
that made it a wilderness candidate a generation ago. It hasn’t
changed much since then, which is sort of the point of wilderness
areas. Bitter Creek contains some of the best mule deer habitat in
the county, and it’s a favorite place for birdwatchers who
appreciate the differences between chestnut-collared longspurs and
McGowan’s longspurs, and who deeply care about the declining
populations of our native grassland birds. Its designation makes it
one of the few BLM properties that we know won’t change over the
next generation, which is a comfort as change increasingly defines
land management in Valley County.
Bitter Creek’s charms are subtle,
like the gumbo hillside encrusted with fossilized clam shells that I
found one day as I trailed a wide-racked mule deer buck miles inside
the WSA boundary. I never got close enough to that buck to make a
shot, but the hillside of shells, a relic of the Precambrian sea that
once covered what is now northeastern Montana, remains one of my
great finds in our area. The glaciers that ground down much of the
plains north of the Milk
River missed this particular knob. Finding those plate-sized
shells was like looking through a window back 100 million years.
As a wilderness area, Bitter Creek
is complicated and compromised. It is bisected by a half-dozen roads.
Enforcement of off-road travel can be lax. And its designation makes
it a target for derision. Recall the wind farm proposed for the ridge
adjacent to the Bitter Creek WSA? The industrial energy project that
was aimed at eroding local support for the WSA? The
heavily-subsidized project that was finally scrapped when it was
revealed that the development was really a front for a tax scam
propagated by a wealthy Texas speculator?
But enough about Bitter Creek. I
cherish it for its wildness and the chance it offers to discover
unknown chunks of country. Many folks look at its designation as
needless. Even the BLM concluded that it doesn’t really exhibit
enough wilderness qualities to support a wilderness area.
Should we lift the WSA designation
from Bitter Creek? Maybe so. Let’s have a discussion about it. But
that discussion is precisely what Gianforte’s bill denies us. There
have been zero opportunities for local input into the decision. I see
that the Valley County Commission has gone on record in support of
removing the WSA designation, but when did the commission solicit
their constituents’ views on the topic? As a public-land user and
advocate, I never heard about a discussion, and neither did the two
dozen other sportsmen I know who hunt Bitter Creek.
Local knowledge and wisdom is an
undervalued commodity. Input from the folks who have to live with the
decisions made by our politicians should be solicited at every turn,
not only to broaden local support for laws, but to make them better
and more livable.
If Gianforte continues to say that
he values local input, then he needs to seek it out. If he doesn’t,
then he can accurately be described as another out-of-touch
representative of the distant government telling us how to live our
lives.
Note: Montana
Sportsmen Alliance PAC The Montana Sportsmen Alliance has not
taken a stand on individual WSA's. We do not support either Gianforte
or Daines' bills eliminating them. We support local Montana voices in
having the debate on each as to their individual values! These bills
deny a voice to Montanan's. They are no different than making it all
wilderness without local input. Both Gianforte and Daines owe it to
this state to allow all voices to participate in a public process
where these decisions are vetted and made. If that takes a lot more
time, so be it!
