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NEWS ARTICLES Share
• [WW Op-ed] "Forest Service buckled under pressure to allow IPTV to film" published in the Idaho Statesman, 6/4/10
• "Groups: Kofa Refuge bighorns aren't helped by water tanks" by Arizona Daily Star, 9/17/09
• "Montana's place in the big 'W'" by Missoula Independent, 9/17/09
• "Wilderness history expert to speak" by Ravalli Republic, 9/17/09
• "War of Words: Tester bill may rewrite the book on Wilderness" by Missoula Independent, 9/3/09
• [WW Op-ed] "Forest Service doing right thing on wilderness bridge" published in Citizen of Laconia, 6/24/09
[WW Op-ed] Forest Service buckled under pressure to allow IPTV to film
Idaho Statesman
Dawn Serra
June 4, 2010
The Forest Service initially made the right decision in denying Idaho Public Television's request to film a trail maintenance project in the Frank Church-River of No Return Wilderness.
It might have gone a step further by suggesting an alternative location where IPTV could obtain the desired footage, thereby avoiding much of the controversy that has ensued.
The Wilderness Act prohibits commercial enterprise, including commercial filming, in these special places, and it's the responsibility of the Forest Service to implement the laws that Congress passes.
Unfortunately, after receiving pressure from Idaho Gov. Butch Otter and Congressman Mike Simpson, Regional Forester Harv Forsgren reversed the decision of local forest officials and permitted the filming to start immediately.
Many of the commentaries critical of the Forest Service's original decision are based on the mistaken notion that IPTV's "nonprofit" status under the Internal Revenue Code makes its activities inherently noncommercial. That represents a misunderstanding of what "nonprofit" status means.
Courts have routinely held that private, nonprofit corporations can engage in commercial activities, and many do, including public television stations. These stations use their programming to obtain advertisers ("corporate sponsors"), not unlike the network and cable channels do, and to solicit contributions from their viewers.
Others have suggested that IPTV's record of pro-environment programming justifies ignoring the Wilderness Act and giving the station a filming permit.
However, the content of the message has no relevance in determining whether the activity is commercial, nor is content-based speech regulation an appropriate role for land managers in the Forest Service. One person's "educational video" is another's "fundraising tool."
I'm sure there will be more than a few Hollywood directors willing to put wilderness on the big screen for the educational benefit of us all.
The Wilderness Act bars commercial enterprise, including filming, because the act's framers saw the benefit, indeed the need, to protect wilderness from being viewed and used as a commodity, and from having its management compromised by economic interests. Upholding this aspect of the law may not always be politically popular, but it's the job of the federal land management agencies to make sure they uphold the law.
When public officials put private interests above those of the people, they erode the public's faith in government and its ability to carry out its responsibilities under the law.
There was a simple solution that met the needs of the television station without compromising the protections afforded wilderness. IPTV could have done its filming on another trail project in the backcountry, but outside the wilderness.
This would be a "win-win" solution that provided the desired film footage without compromising the Wilderness Act or the ethics of the agency responsible for managing the Frank Church-River of No Return Wilderness.
Dawn Serra is with Wilderness Watch in Missoula, Mont.
[This also appeared on WW's blog.]
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Groups: Kofa Refuge bighorns aren't helped by water tanks
By Tony Davis
ARIZONA DAILY STAR
9/17/09
Two controversial water tanks placed in the Kofa National Wildlife Refuge to help the refuge's troubled bighorn sheep aren't working as promised, environmentalists said this week.
After reviewing more than 4,000 photographic images from the tanks, the groups said that they saw no pictures of bighorns drinking at either tank and only one scene of a bighorn walking near a tank. They saw mule deer, hawks, coyotes, vultures, doves and bobcats aplenty, they said.
That led the groups to conclude that the tanks, 13,000 gallons each, were placed in the refuge by state and federal officials as a ruse — ostensibly aimed at bighorns but in reality targeting mule deer because of their attraction to hunters. A conclusion supported by the placement of the tanks in flat, open habitat better suited for the deer than the more secretive bighorns that prefer rockier cliffs and ridges for shelter, the environmentalists said.
"Based on my experience, I would never have selected either site as a location for a bighorn watering hole," said Ron Kearns, a former Fish and Wildlife Service biologist in the Kofa now representing Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility. "The areas lack nearby high relief escape terrain that is critical to bighorn for predator avoidance. Both sites are ideal for mule deer water use and exceptionally marginal for bighorn use."
State and federal officials, however, say it's too soon to write these tanks off as failures. That's partly because rainfall there has been average since their installation two years ago.
The tanks were put in a wilderness area inside the refuge, which has prompted a lawsuit from the environmental groups in federal court. The suit is seeking removal of the human-built structures from wilderness. A U.S. District Judge in Phoenix upheld the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service's installation in a ruling last year. The decision is under appeal to the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals.
The recent average rainfall brought "very good range" conditions and decent natural water for wildlife, the State Game and Fish Department said in a statement. They were built at a cost of about $40,000 total.
"The real need for the new water developments will be during drought years," the department said.
"Department biologists expect to see significant use on both of the water systems during the next extended drought period. Drought is normal in a desert environment but it can't be predicted when it will occur next. Water developments are insurance policies that limit or mitigate some of the negative impacts of drought."
Game and Fish also said that they got a report of one shot of a bighorn using a tank last June 11 — contrary to the environmental groups' statement. That was the same day that the environmentalists said the shot of a bighorn walking by the tank was taken.
The conflict over tanks is one of two skirmishes in the Kofa over the refuge's renowned sheep herd. The population was about 800 in 2000, dropped to 620 in 2003, then crashed to 390 in 2006 before rebounding slightly over the next two years. State and federal governments have drawn fierce environmentalist opposition to efforts to shoot mountain lions known to be killing bighorns.
In this case, the issue has been human intrusion into the Kofa Wilderness, an area covering more than 500,000 acres of the 665,400-acre refuge that drew federal wilderness designation back in 1990. When the tanks were built, state and federal officials hailed them as a tonic for drought conditions that they blamed along with lions for the sheep population crash.
While drought has been a normal part of the Kofa's ecosystem for hundreds if not thousands of years, this has exceeded any past known drought by several years, the department said on its Web site. The drought slashes the amount, palatability and diversity of plants the sheep eat, the department said.
When McPherson tank was built, Game and Fish predicted that about 90 percent of its use would be by bighorns. Game and Fish also has said that, "Bighorn sheep were using Yaqui Tank within days of its installation."
Instead, today, one of the groups involved in the lawsuit, Wilderness Watch, says that building the water developments was an effort to artificially inflate bighorn numbers. The Sierra Club and Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility have also been involved in the legal struggle over these tanks.
"Bighorns have evolved there for thousands of years," said George Nickas, Wilderness Watch's executive director. "In wilderness we let nature take its course, to determine which species are there in what numbers. The Wilderness Act's goal is an area untrammeled, uncontrolled and unmanipulated by humans."
Fish and Wildlife official Mitch Ellis said that officials will need five to 10 years to judge if the tanks are effective.
"Some species are able to use the waters quicker. There's a lot of factors that can affect the level of wildlife use of these tanks," said Ellis, manager of a complex of Southwestern Arizona refuges including Kofa.
Game and Fish's biologists still believe that bighorns will benefit more from these tanks in the long run, the department's statement said. John Hervert, a department biologist, spotted evidence of bighorn use of the Yaqui tank — several sets of bighorn tracks in the dirt around the trough shortly after construction, the department said.
Contrary to Kearns' assertion, the water tanks are located in good bighorn habitat at the foot of mountains, with McPherson located inside a complex of mountains, with a large wash system running into the Kofa Valley, Hervert said.
Contact reporter Tony Davis at 806-7746 or tdavis@azstarnet.com Follow Tony Davis's blog at Blogging the Desert, regulus2.azstarnet.com/blogs /desertblog
All content copyright © 1999-2009 AzStarNet, Arizona Daily Star and its wire services and suppliers
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Montana's place in the "Big W"
by Alex Sakariassen
Missoula Independent
9/17/09
As debate over Sen. Jon Tester's Forest Jobs and Recreation Act continues, acclaimed environmental author Rod Nash–set to speak on the definition of wilderness in Hamilton Sept. 19–sits more or less in the bleachers, not fully engaged in the discussion. Yet he offers helpful insight on Montana's place in the broader context of "Big W."
"Wilderness and national parks aren't about beauty in the sense that a garden is or a park is," Nash says from his home in Crested Butte, Colo., which he's quick to mention lies within eight miles of five wilderness areas. "They're about wildness, they're about self-willed places and self-willed processes and species that should be left alone by human beings out of the interest of sharing the planet with other inhabitants of spaceship Earth."
Nash's credentials lend him a certain authority on matters of the wild. Outside magazine hailed his 1967 book Wilderness and the American Mind as one of the "ten books that changed our world." The avid outdoorsman is also an active member of the advisory board for nonprofit Wilderness Watch.
While avoiding specifics, Nash did speak generally about the Tester bill, mentioning the historic weight of vague and misleading language. Sloppy phrasing, Nash says, can undermine the proposal's goals.
"If language creates some loopholes that people think permit them to go in and do some things in [wilderness], it violates the basic concept of wilderness, which is to leave the land self-willed," Nash says.
As for logging mandates requiring the harvest of 70,000 designated acres over a decade, Nash says such language is "rare" in wilderness legislation, especially if drafters seek to "toe the line" from the 1964 Wilderness Act.
As the debate continues, Nash boils his advice for Montana's wilderness legislation down to one word: restraint.
"Have the courage to say that there should be places in Montana that are not about us, that are not about our economy, that are not about our recreation, that are not about our pleasure, that are not about our scenic values," he says. "Have the courage to back off and let some parts of the wild world be unmodified and do their own thing."
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Wilderness history expert to speak
by JOHN CRAMER - Ravalli Republic
9/17/09
Environmental historian Rod Nash will mark the Wilderness Act’s 45th anniversary with a public talk Saturday in Hamilton about the benefits of preserving America’s wild places.
The milestone comes as the landmark environmental law faces continued pressure from legislators, motorized recreationists and others who seek to weaken safeguards for some of the nation’s most pristine areas, said George Nickas, executive director of Wilderness Watch, which is sponsoring Nash’s talk.
“The wilderness system is in serious trouble” because of efforts to chip away at protections and because federal agency leaders have failed to fully monitor wilderness areas and enforce existing rules, Nickas said.
Nash’s lecture, titled “The Meaning of Wilderness and the Rights of Nature,” is slated for 7 p.m. at Hamilton City Hall. The event is free.
Nash, author of “Wilderness and the American Mind,” is considered a national leader in wilderness history, management and education.
“He’s one of America’s foremost scholars on wilderness and conservation issues,” said Dawn Serra, communications and outreach coordinator for Wilderness Watch.
The Missoula-based national nonprofit group, which is celebrating its 20th anniversary, works to protect lands and waters in the National Wilderness Preservation System.
Nash, who helped to create the modern conservation movement in the United States in the 1960s, is retired from the University of California at Santa Barbara. He lives in Colorado.
Both a wilderness scholar and explorer, Nash advocates for the preservation and management of wilderness areas.
“He understands what wilderness is and what the wilderness system means from the perspective of an educator and historian but also from his personal experience as a river guide and adventurer,” Serra said.
His book “Wilderness and the American Mind” explores the cultural history of America’s relationship with wilderness.
“It’s a seminal book on how Americans’ attitudes and ethics about wilderness have evolved over the years,” Serra said. “It’s considered the Bible on American wilderness and what it means today.”
Early settlers regarded the wilderness as a place to be feared, civilized and exploited, but by the 1890s as the frontier disappeared, more Americans came to regard their forests, mountains, rivers and deserts as a sanctuary from the industrial revolution’s crowded cities.
“We always thought of growth as synonymous with progress, but maybe bigger is not better if it creates a civilization that is unsustainable,” Nash said in a news release.
The Wilderness Act was passed in 1964 and the Wild and Scenic Rivers Act in 1968.
The National Wilderness Preservation System started with nine million acres and now numbers nearly 110 million acres.
There are 756 wilderness areas in all but six states, with 3.4 million acres in 15 Montana wilderness areas.
Nickas said U.S. Sen. Jon Tester’s Forest Jobs and Recreation Act would weaken wilderness protections by allowing harmful special provisions for management of wildlife, habitat, wildfire, livestock and military training, including the use of motorized vehicles.
“Tester’s bill and other bills have sloppy and overzealous language that takes these roadless areas that should be designated as wilderness and allocates them to anti-wilderness groups,” Nickas said.
He said top officials at the federal agencies charged with administering wilderness areas - the Forest Service, National Park Service, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and Bureau of Land Management - haven’t created a systematic way to monitor the lands and waters in the program.
Major threats to wilderness also come from overuse by recreationists, noxious weeds, motor vehicles and motorized equipment, Nickas said.
Wilderness Watch supports the Northern Rockies Ecosystem Protection Act, which would designate as wilderness 24 million acres in the Northern Rockies.
The group opposes the Forest Service’s proposal to use a helicopter to remove the wreckage of an airplane that crashed in the 1930s in the Bob Marshall Wilderness.
The group also wants the Forest Service to remove rather than perform maintenance on the Fish Lake Dam in the Selway-Bitterroot Wilderness.
More information is available from www.wildernesswatch.org.
Reporter John Cramer can be reached at 363-3300 or jcramer@ravallirepublic.com.
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War of words
Tester bill may rewrite the book on wilderness
Missoula Independent
September 3, 2009
by Skylar Browning
Sen. Jon Tester's 84-page Forest Jobs and Recreation Act doesn't exactly make for scintillating summer reading. But environmental groups who have pored over the proposal warn that its "incredibly sloppy" language may set a dangerous precedent for what's permissible in wilderness areas, and federal employees have confirmed that some provisions read unlike anything they've ever seen before—and not necessarily in a good way. The concern is that the bill, as currently written, will change the very definition of wilderness.
"Once these provisions get into wilderness bills, they often get replicated in future bills," says George Nickas, executive director of Wilderness Watch, a Missoula-based nonprofit dedicated to protecting federal wilderness. "You see that in Tester's bill, where he's included provisions that have shown up in other recent bills. All these bills are now becoming a race to the bottom. They never put in any provisions that strengthen wilderness protections. Each one seems to be allowing more and more nonconforming activities so that wilderness becomes less unique, less protected and less special."
The most glaring example in Tester's bill allows military helicopters to land inside the Highlands, a portion of the Beaverhead-Deerlodge National Forest slated for wilderness designation. Tester included the provision in order to honor an existing agreement with Peak Enterprises, a private company in Butte that drops soldiers in the area as part of a mountain warfare training exercise three-to-four times per year.
Allison Stewart, national press officer for the U.S. Forest Service, incorrectly told the Independent three weeks ago that similar provisions existed in other wilderness areas throughout the country. The Independent found no such examples.
"I misspoke," says Stewart. "I was thinking of low-level overflights. I am not aware of any landings, and I do not believe there is any legislation that authorizes it."
Stewart's misunderstanding is indicative of how subtle wording in the bill may cause confusion. Low-level overflights, or military aircraft using airspace above wilderness, are commonly allowed in wilderness bills. But landings inside a designated wilderness area would be a first.
"Forget about the legality or the illegality or the conflict with the original Wilderness Act," says Nickas. "It's really hard for me to envision anything that's more contrary to the idea of wilderness, to these sacred places where nature is in charge, than overlaying military training in these places."
Aaron Murphy, a spokesperson for Tester, says the senator's aware that no other bill allows for military landings, but stresses that the training exercises are infrequent. He adds the provision is an example of Tester's willingness to work with all Montanans to craft the proposal.
"Jon wrote this bill because he—like many Montanans—knows that the old way of managing our forests isn't working," says Murphy. "He knows that in order for good forest policy legislation to move forward, it needs to be created from the bottom up."
Good policy or not, the Forest Service still expressed surprise with how Tester's bill addressed typically boilerplate wilderness provisions. In a portion of the bill covering the proposed Snowcrest Wilderness Area, one passage allows specifically for "historical motorized access to trail sheep."
"I'm not familiar with that specific term," says Terry Knupp, a Washington, D.C.-based wilderness program manager with the Forest Service, when asked whether she's heard of "historical motorized access to trail sheep" before. "There are several pieces of legislation that have some accommodation for historical grazing practices in them, but it's typically listed in a general way. What you're asking me, I'm not sure what that means, as written. I've never heard of something like that before."
Krupp goes on to explain that most legislation references detailed guidelines on grazing practices provided in a 1990 House report. Those guidelines read, in part, "Where practical alternatives do not exist, maintenance or other activities may be accomplished through the occasional use of motorized equipment..."
Critics believe Tester's Snowcrest section doesn't account for "practical alternatives" and, when it broadly preserves motorized access "for other ranching activities," it opens the door to more than just "occasional use."
"What does that mean?" asks Nickas. "Does that mean a rancher could come along and say that he's been driving all over hell just to count his cows and listen to them bawl? The point is, it's not specific."
Tester's office admits the language is "unique," but says the bill simply reinforces the continuation of grazing in the Snowcrest and adapts "to Montana's historic needs."
"Jon is not concerned about this provision being expanded beyond sheep trailing," says Murphy.
That's little consolation for those worried about some of the bill's squishy language. With Tester touting the bill as "a model for the West," as he recently told the Helena Independent Record, precise wording becomes a priority.
"One of the problems with the bill, in general, is that it's incredibly sloppy," says Nickas. "Having been involved in a lot of litigation and appeals and other things involving the Wilderness Act, words matter. Language matters a lot. The sloppy language in Tester's bill is really problematic in a lot of places."
Tester's office does concede that there is still time to make changes. Murphy calls the bill a "work in progress" and that amendments can be made.
"Many legal experts have reviewed the bill," he says, "and have the best intentions to make this language uniquely fit Montana."
The question remains whether the bill fits the traditional definition of congressionally designated wilderness.
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[WW Op-ed] Forest Service doing right thing on wilderness bridge
The Citizen of Laconia
Dawn Serra
June 24, 2009
A controversy is brewing over a Forest Service proposal to remove an unsafe and unnecessary bridge in New Hampshire's 45,000-acre Pemigewasset Wilderness. White Mountain National Forest's (WMNF) Pemigewasset Wilderness Bridge Removal Project seeks to address public safety concerns and at the same time, enhance the wilderness character in the Pemigewasset. The proposal to remove, rather than replace, the deteriorating bridge shows a commitment by the WMNF to uphold the intent of the Wilderness Act, our country's most visionary land protection law. As a nationwide citizens' organization working for proper wilderness stewardship and protection, we wish to share our view that the Forest Service is doing the right thing for Wilderness and acting in accordance with the law.
WMNF managers and engineers determined last year that the 180-foot suspension bridge crossing the East Branch of the Pemigewasset River is deteriorated to the point of causing concern for public safety. The wooden rails and decking of the nearly 50-year-old bridge have rotted enough to make the bridge unsafe for crossing. The structure lies within the Pemigewasset Wilderness and predates the wilderness designation established through the 1984 New Hampshire Wilderness Act.
The proposal includes closing and rehabilitating a 0.7-mile stretch of the Wilderness Trail that accesses the suspension bridge, connecting it with a steel I-beam bridge over Black Brook, also to be removed. WMNF plans to remove the two bridges using hand tools and other non-motorized, non-mechanized means, in compliance with the Wilderness Act.
WMNF, by proposing bridge removal rather than replacement, is upholding the ideals of the Wilderness Act, which generally prohibits structures and installations in Wilderness. The Act does seek to provide primitive recreation opportunities as an important wilderness value, but only in a manner and to an extent that protects and preserves the area's wilderness character. Removing this man-made structure will enhance the Pemigewasset's wilderness character by returning the area to a more natural state and will offer more primitive recreation opportunities, where visitors can experience nature on her own terms.
While there may be some controversy over removing this bridge, which will eliminate some loop hikes and make some trips longer, the Forest Service is doing the right thing for the public and for Wilderness. The Wilderness Act defines Wilderness as areas "…where the earth and its community of life are untrammeled by man ... retaining its primeval character and influence, without permanent improvements or human habitation... which is protected and managed so as to preserve its natural conditions... " Removing this bridge will make the Pemigewasset a little wilder, as its wilderness designation intended it to be.
We encourage visitors to the Pemigewasset Wilderness and citizens throughout the area to lend support to the Forest Service's efforts to enhance this unique area. Send your comments by letter: Pemigewasset Ranger District, ATT.: John Marunowski, 1171 Rte 175, Holderness NH 03245, or by fax: (603) 536-5147, ATT.: John Marunowski, or by e-mail: jmarunowskifs.fed.us
Dawn Serra is outreach coordinator for Wilderness Watch, based in Missoula, Mont.
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