Wilderness Watch is raising concerns about the Forest Service’s Granite Moccasin Project, a proposed expedited industrial logging project on the Flathead National Forest in northwest Montana, which would violate the Wilderness Act and negatively impact the Great Bear Wilderness.
The Forest Service proposes to log 4,689 acres across the Flathead National Forest, including 175 acres adjacent to the Great Bear Wilderness. Not only that—the agency is relying on an “Emergency Action Determination” to sidestep the legal requirements of the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA)—including the public comment period.
Wilderness Watch noted in our letter to the FS the many ways proposed logging, road construction, and heavy machinery in riparian areas threatens the clean water, healthy watershed, and untrammeled character of the Great Bear. Noise from this industrial logging project will be heard miles into the Wilderness, impacting human visitors and wildlife alike. Sensitive species such as wolverines, grizzly bears, Canada lynx, wolves, and mountain goats could be displaced from vital habitat and a key migration corridor. And, seven miles of new roads outside the Wilderness would act as conduits for invasive species and illegal motorized incursions into the Wilderness.
Unlike some Wildernesses, Congress designated the Great Bear via a “clean” wilderness bill without an anti-buffer clause, which means the FS must ensure the Great Bear’s wilderness character is not degraded from activities outside of the Wilderness, including on its boundaries. Those that would harm wilderness character, such as this project, need to be mitigated or relocated.
By ignoring its duty to preserve the wilderness character of the Great Bear Wilderness, the Forest Service is attempting to manage the wilderness boundary as a hard line across which no ecological or social considerations may pass. This “island” approach to wilderness management is scientifically flawed and legally untenable under the Wilderness Act. The Forest Service must respect the integrity of the Great Bear Wilderness by adopting a management alternative that minimizes mechanization, prevents fragmentation, and honors the statutory promise of a wild and untrammeled Wilderness.
Photo: Great Bear Wilderness by Troy Smith
