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FIRST AND ONLY ON NEWWEST.NET
Pat Williams on Wilderness and the Beaverhead-Deerlodge Partnership
Revise and expand the Beaverhead-Deerlodge Bill and don't think small. You might only get one chance.By Bill Schneider, 12-13-08
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| Former Montana Congressman Pat Williams | |
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“With Wilderness bills, we can always find reasons not to do it.”
So says, Pat Williams, the man who probably has more standing in the seemingly endless efforts to protect Montana’s wild land than anybody still living in the state.
In an exclusive interview with NewWest.Net on Friday, Williams spoke out on Montana’s Wilderness Drought, and uncorked some sage advice for Montana’s delegation and green groups on how we should try to end it--and, also, how not to try to end it.
Williams, a Democrat, served Montana for nine terms in the U.S. House of Representatives from 1979 to 1997. Now he teaches part-time at the University of Montana and serves as a Senior Fellow at the Missoula-based Center for the Rocky Mountain West (CRMW).
During his 18-year tenure in Congress, Williams fought long and hard for Wilderness, introducing 16 different bills, including Montana’s last major effort, a massive statewide bill, which actually passed Congress in 1988 but was vetoed by President Ronald Reagan.
That was 20 years ago. Not much has happened since then, except ubiquitous disagreement and infighting among green groups on how to proceed, which has contributed to even more disinterest in the Wilderness issue from Montana’s congressional delegation.
The delegation hasn’t even introduced a single bill in the past 13 years, Williams emphasizes. In a recent commentary in Headwaters News, a CRMW project, he called that situation “downright embarrassing,” pointing out that Idaho and Montana “are the only states in the entire nation to not have satisfied the imperative of providing the ultimate protection of wilderness designation to the most important of our remaining wild lands.”
So, what does former congressional leader Pat Williams think Montana greens and politcos should do to finally move forward?
“I think the delegation should bite off as much as it can swallow,” Williams advises. “It’s almost as hard to pass a small bill as a large bill.”
Specifically, he supports using a revised version of the proposed Beaverhead-Deerlodge bill as a base and then adding “at a minimum” the Great Burn ("which is ready"), the Yaak ("which is also ready") and the Rocky Mountain Front “and put it all in one bill.”
(For those unfamiliar with wild areas in Montana: The Great Burn is 175,000-wild land straddling the Idaho-Montana border west of Missoula; the Yaak is in multi-faceted proposal including a small, Wilderness for far northwestern Montana; and the Rocky Mountain Front is a huge swash of wild country stacked up against the Bob Marshall Wilderness Complex west of Great Falls.)
“This would still be less than one half the size of the bill Reagan vetoed in 1988,” he notes.
That was “the last big attempt to pass a statewide wilderness bill,” he said. “It has been 25 years since we passed any bill.”
And Williams thinks green groups might only have one chance. “The next bill they (the delegation) pass might be the last bill they pass in the next 25 years.”
Translate: Wilderness advocates should not think small.
Some major green groups and members of the timber industry are already employing this strategy and have come up with an extensive collaborative effort called the Beaverhead-Deerlodge Partnership (BDP) and have a draft bill to formalize it. The BDP covers a lot of territory, but it’s still not big enough for Williams.
(Click here for a recent NewWest.net commentary on the BDP.)
“The Beaverhead-Deerlodge Partnership is the product of a good local collaboration and a lot of hard work,” Williams said, but “I personally would like to see changes in it because it’s unworkable as it is. There is a lot of concerns in the conservation community about the language of the Beaverhead-Deerlodge bill, and I’d be stunned if the delegation didn’t heed those objections.”
He’s also concerned that disagreements among greens over the current version of the BDP bill could turn into a messy situation for the delegation and end up extending the Wilderness Drought instead of ending it.
Ironically, Williams is included on a list of “those who have praised” the BDP on the website of the Montana Wilderness Association, but when asked about it, he said “I only support the process.”
Basically, Williams believes creators of the BDP bill should have used other bargaining chips instead of giving up key wild lands, such as the West Big Hole and the areas included in the 1977 Montana Wilderness Study Act, S. 393.
“We can’t give up the S. 393 areas,” he said, forcefully. “They should never be released.”
But Williams believes in the collaborative approach and is convinced it can be done correctly to help the timber industry. “You can get timber out, but not out of RARE II or S. 393 areas.”
(RARE II was a 1979 inventory of key roadless areas conducted by the U.S. Forest Service. The West Big Hole, included in the current BDP bill, is a RARE II area.)
“There are ways to leverage the process and get timber out with release language,” Williams believes, “but not out of roadless areas.”
He favors release language for already roaded areas to help timber mills and “non-timber trading” like economic development funds and various relief options for industry on grazing, energy, and water rights issues.
Concerning the efforts by some green groups to address wild land protection by codifying the Roadless Rule, Williams is cool on that approach, mainly because the Roadless Rule doesn’t ban motorized use.
“Once you have motorized use, you’ll never have Wilderness,” he believes. “Motorized use is the biggest threat to Wilderness.”
His final word on Wilderness bills: “It’s not about preservation. It’s about Montana’s economy. It’s about hunting and fishing which is a cash register for Montana communities, large and small. We want to keep Montana like it is. This is the way to do it.”
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Comments
wilderness in montana is our chief asset. it is the one thing that makes montana montana. they provide clean water and excellent wildlife habitat as well as incredible life time experiences. i agree with pat. if we are going to ask congress to pass a wilderness bill, it should have all the parts so we can be sure it stays alive for future generations. no sense bidding on a dead horse. let's shoot for a live one.
The comment on the S 393 lands is interesting...goes to show that once something is PROPOSED by the narrow wildernist faction, then it is theirs, in their mind. So much for compromise and moving goalposts, hah?
Again, the B-D is a joke because it front-loads wilderness with no substantial protections for multiple use. Any action can still be litigated to death after the designation. So it's not a compromise at all, even though it seems like it to the all for us and nothing for anyone else clique.
Come to me with a wilderness bill that DOES hard release other lands for other uses, and not just voidable language like in the Washington and Wyoming wilderness acts, and maybe we can come to a lasting solution. But front-load, leaving the door open for the same old destruction by neglect we now have, while allowing Greens to refocus their efforts on claiming yet more inappropriate Wilderness...well, kiss my grits.
Big "W" wilderness will never fly again. It is a lot like the old gun control battle. You won't "educate" us into seeing the light of your path and the error of our ways. Wilderness deignation is too restrictive for most public lands. That is not to say we don't need wilderness. In fact most people believe we have lots of it. That is why we have this so-called "wilderness drought".
If my party wants to continue to win elections we need to resist the screwed up logic of urban liberals and eco-fanatics.
when you start messing with wilderness supporters keep in mind you are messing with me and a lot of other montanans who feel the way i do. by the way- were you aware that pat williams is a native montanan? i am proud of montana because of men like pat who are not afraid to stand up to small talk by pea brains like you two.
Now back to wilderness.
There are several wilderness study areas within the Missouri Breaks...yes there is life outside your little idea of Montana. The problem with WSAs is they slant the debate to, as Pat said MOTORS. So when we have an RMP update we spend years and millions fighting over motors on the rivers and in the uplands. If you think the locals are for less access you are a fool or a liar. I have listened to that crap for the past 10 years and the fact remains, there has been no new wilderness in 30 years. Your plan is busted friend, come up with a better one or wait another 30 years.
I don't kow if the objection to wilderness protection lies in simple ideology ("the government is bad, and if they do it, it is bad" -- which I notice doesn't stand when anti-wilderness zealots are defending farm subsidies or new highway projects), or whether Cotton Mather is their god ("all which is not useful is evil"
which ol' Cotton was prattling before we knew about watershed protection, etc). I think it is time for anti-wilderness citizens to explain and outline what the world would look like if they had the power. What exactly is it that you believe? That 98% of the land surface being accessible by road is NOT enough? Why so much anger? What is it about wilderness designation that offends you so? Given the current situation of the world- 6 some odd billion people and climbing, a population equivalent to that of California's added to the US every few years- your position not to designate new wilderness areas, to preserve these lands, seems extraordinary, an extremist position.
There are entire libraries available that explain the position for preserving wilderness. There are a few pamphlets here and there that argue for less of it- and the ones I have read almost all rely on anger and ideology rather than real argument. Am I missing some crucial book or documentary, or reasoned argument against
preserving, say the Wilderness Study Areas?
I've been around a long time, and have had alot of these exchanges here, and elsewhere. I think you'll know my question is serious, and sincere. There is something that should be explained here, if possible, so that we can move the discussion forward.
Hal
I will go with what I know.
I work and play in the breaks. Eight years ago 375,000 acres of it became a national monument. Within the monument are several WSAs in some fairly remote areas. These lands are hunted and grazed, the cows are fat the sheep and elk are expanding. The Missouri runs through it, motorized use seasonaly, I won't go too far into the details, basically downsteam only in summer, up or down the rest of the year. It works. It all works. It ain't broke! But no...now that it is a monument every NGO in the Us wants to "save" it. Now back to WSAs, can't have wilderness with motors, No more cows, no trucks, no motorboats. To my way of thinking no access. I'm fairly certain we are headed to court over the BLM RMP, the WS and MWA didn't get everything they wanted.
Some of the older folks that ranch down there are ready to sell, but not to NGOs, it goes to Cabela's. Too bad. Your plan doesn't work.
Bottom line...no trust. It doesn't help much when you preach that we are not 'correct" enough to engage in civil discussion.
Let's not forget that good old Bob Marshall's Alaska Wilderness Experience was in a map-dot where his neighbors had mines and claims or were subsistence hunting...in other words, trying not to be visitors but to remain.
Let's not forget that Bob was also an eastern scion of money and pretty much a socialist when socialism was young and fresh, prior to Stalin's purges yet after the dekulakization.
Let's also not forget that the Indians pretty much put the landscape to whatever uses they could, wherever they could. That's a fact. North America at the time of Columbus was not a natural landscape, but one with an anthropological history.
Whether or not these lands appeared "wild" after Eurodisease wiped Indians out, doesn't override the fact that most vegetative and animal communities were shaped heavily by induced changes through set fires, agricultural planting, et cetera. What about those charcoal soils in the wild, wild Amazon?
The point I am driving at is that North and South America have been managed for human purposes for a period far longer than any living Joshua tree. Indians were no more passive in their environment than any white or yellow or brown or purple people on any of the other continents. And when it comes to "tradition" -- the real tradition of Indians is, guess what, to adopt the tools that work free of any neo-Luddite hooey. It's an amazingly pragmatic, effective and utilitarian outlook -- probably utilitarian because tribal governments lack resources to waste.
Okay, so if we adopt tools that work, on landscapes that evolved with human management, in order to generate the stuff we want (and that's not always industrial raw material, although I do like forest products a lot), how do we make that adoption a situation where the effort (cost) is justified by the outcome (benefits)?
One way we start is by integrating landscape management. There will be places where good outcomes could be had from plain old fire. Yet it might be efficient and cost-effective to allow chainsaws for trail operations...beats the tar out of hand-bucking. Maybe even some wheeled scrapers for the mules to pull on tricky erosion projects or bridge improvements? Both are no-no's in "Wilderness." But probably allowed in a "roadless area."
Aw heck, I could rant on about this forever, but choose instead to declare that "wilderness" is illusory. It's a human concept...it's humans that pick the places they want to declare "wild" -- Marshall picked spots he found beautiful, remote, or at least looked like it.
Wild country is not so because Congress declares it, it is so because of topography, weather, and accessibility. Alaska, for example, will always be a pretty wild place, simply because it is Alaska. The Sahara will be so as well. But the Serengeti? You tell me those fancy-pants camps with the Range Rovahs are wild? Psht. Yet I hear all this hooey about "America's Serengeti." Just a cheap sound bite for the gullible.
Phooey.
And I'm writing in from our fmaily place, where I grew up, in Alabama. And I just got back from fighting traffic for forty minutes on what used to be a road through farmlands and creek bottoms. I can point out where we used to shoot doves on one side, and hunt deer and ducks on the other, where we caught all the bullheads, etc.
And, my friend, it is flat covered up. Gone. As Dave would say, it has "evolved with human management." Boy, that's the understatement of the century.
Most people don't seem to miss it, or feel the loss. But I do, so somebody else, must. Seems like it might make what is left more valuable, following the old rules of economics.