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January 2016 • Volume 14, Number 1
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“Wilderness, above all its definitions and uses, is sacred space,
with sacred powers, the heart of a moral world.” —Michael Frome
River of No Return WildernessIdaho Illegally Captures and Collars Wolves in
River of No Return Wilderness: Last week we alerted you that the Forest
Service (FS) had approved a plan by the Idaho Dept. of Fish and Game to use
helicopters in the Frank Church-River of No Return Wilderness in central
Idaho to capture and collar elk. We immediately filed a complaint in
federal court (along with Friends of the Clearwater and Western Watersheds
Project) to stop this project. Read more in a news article.
A few days ago we learned IDFG used the helicopters to also capture and
collar wolves in the Wilderness, another violation of the law and its
Forest Service permit.
Read a statement from our groups.
cow-grand-staircase-escalan_cropped.jpgRetire Grazing Permits: Grazing on
public lands has made the national news lately with the Bundys’ armed
thugs illegally taking over the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge in Oregon.
One longer-term solution to grazing problems is to remove cows from our
public lands. Wilderness Watch supports the Rural Economic Vitalization Act
(REVA, H.R. 3410), a bill that would allow ranchers to waive livestock
grazing permits in Wilderness and on other federal public lands, and retire
such lands from grazing. H.R. 3410 provides financial compensation for
retiring these grazing permits, and could benefit all public lands and
Wildernesses that currently allow livestock grazing, one of the more
destructive activities allowed on public lands. Read an article.
How you can help:
• Contact your Representative and ask him or her to support the Rural
Economic Vitalization Act (REVA)
• Call the White House and tell President Obama to take back our public
lands: Comments: 202-456-1111/Switchboard: 202-456-1414
Read a fact-sheet about REVA.
Wilderness in Congress:
Mountain Biking Sign-on Letter. Some mountain bikers and mountain biker
organizations are working to introduce legislation in Congress to weaken
the Wilderness Act to allow mountain bikes in designated Wildernesses. When
Congress passed the Wilderness Act, it intentionally prohibited both motor
vehicles and mechanical transport in Wilderness. The Act’s lead sponsor
in the House of Representatives, Republican John P. Saylor, stated so
clearly: “the stress and strain of our crowded, fast-moving,
highly-mechanized and raucously noisy civilization create another great
need for wilderness—a deep need for areas of solitude and quiet, for
areas of wilderness where life has not yet given way to machinery.” Read
an article about this effort to weaken the Act.
To help counter this very real threat to Wilderness, Wilderness Watch is
circulating a group sign-on letter to Congress for organizations to show
their support for protecting the Wilderness Act from this attack. Read the
sign-on letter. Please email Kevin Proescholdt at Wilderness Watch by
January 31 to sign your organization on to this letter. (Please include
your organization’s name, and city and state where it is located.) Please
help pass the word by also circulating this letter to as many other
organizations as you can. We hope to have a very long list of groups sign
on, including groups from every state. Many thanks for your support for
Wilderness.
ANILCA Oversight Hearing. On December 3, 2015, the Senate Energy and
Natural Resources Committee held an oversight hearing on the 35th
anniversary of the landmark 1980 Alaska National Interest Lands
Conservation Act (ANILCA). Among other things, ANILCA designated 56 million
acres of Wilderness in Alaska, more than doubling the size of the National
Wilderness Preservation System. The hearing witnesses were unfortunately
stacked against ANILCA (not surprising, given Committee Chair Lisa
Murkowski’s (R-AK) antagonism towards ANILCA), with only one
pro-wilderness witness allowed to testify. But Wilderness Watch prepared
and submitted a formal statement for the hearing record to provide
additional support for the tremendous conservation accomplishments that
ANILCA brought, while also pointing out some of the challenges and
unfulfilled promises yet ahead. Read Wilderness Watch’s statement.
freddie.jpg“My Best Days have been Climbing!” During the Great
Recession several years back, Wilderness Watch’s experience was very
similar to nonprofits throughout the country. Foundation grants and
donations significantly declined. In what would have been our darkest hour,
a unique member gave WW an extraordinarily generous gift that instantly
righted the ship.
Frances Chamberlin Carter has a deep and abiding love of wild places. She
has spent her life hiking and climbing the earth’s most inaccessible
places. In 1980, in fact, she became the first woman and the eighth person
to climb the highest peak in all 50 U.S. states. Read more about Ms.
Carter.
Get Social & Help Wilderness Watch Defend Wilderness: Wilderness Watch has
expanded our social media efforts on Facebook and Twitter and we could use
your help to spread the word! One of our goals in 2016 is to better
position ourselves to put more people into action when Wilderness threats
or opportunities arise, and the fast-paced world of social media will help
us do that.
You can find us on Twitter @WildernessWatch and connect with us on Facebook
at: www.facebook.com/wildernesswatch64. Please give us a ‘like’ and a
‘follow’ and make sure to let your friends know that Wilderness
Watch’s social media sites are a group source for the latest news,
updates, and action alerts about America’s Wilderness system. Thanks for
helping us #KeepItWild!
03georgewuerthner041807.jpgHelp Protect a Wilder Yosemite: Yosemite
National Park (YNP) is accepting public scoping comments on its Wilderness
Stewardship Plan/Environmental Impact Statement until 1/29/16. The Yosemite
Wilderness is 704,000 acres and makes up 94 percent of the Park. The Park
Service has raised four issues in the scoping letter—visitor use and
capacity, stock use, trail management, and commercial services. These are
important issues that are all related to overuse.
If you’d like to help try to shape future management at YNP, you can
submit your comments online. We encourage you to ask the Park Service to:
• respect the intent of the Wilderness Act to limit commercial services
in Wilderness;
• stop routine use of helicopters and other motorized equipment in the
Wilderness;
• remove nonconforming structures and uses in potential wilderness within
the Park and designate those areas as Wilderness.
• ensure that all alternatives preserve and maintain wilderness
character, and require the Park Service to better manage visitor use.
Natural processes must be allowed to define the character of the
wilderness.
Thank you for taking action to help preserve the Yosemite Wilderness.
Read WW’s comments.
800px-chelansawtoothwilderness.jpgWW Concerned About Sonic Weapons Blasting
in Wildernesses: Wilderness Watch has been concerned about a U.S. Navy
plan to blast the Olympic Peninsula with sonic weapons, including within
five Wildernesses: Olympic (Olympic National Park), Colonel Bob, Washington
Islands, Lake Chelan-Sawtooth, and the Pasayten. The Navy’s Environmental
Assessment fails to discuss the impacts to these Wildernesses.
Additionally, we believe flight paths outside the project area will
potentially affect the Stephen Mather, Glacier Peak, Mount Baker, Noisy
Diobsud, Boulder River, Henry M. Jackson, Wild Sky, Alpine Lakes, and San
Juan Islands Wildernesses as well. We have urged the Forest Service to
complete an Environmental Impact Statement analyzing the impacts to
Wilderness. Read our comments. Sign a petition.
Just for Fun: Stargazing
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to help us protect Wilderness around the country.
Photos: Kevin Proescholdt/
WILDERNESS WATCH is America’s only organization dedicated to defending
and keeping wild the nation’s 110 million-acre National Wilderness
Preservation System. Our work is guided by the visionary 1964 Wilderness
Act.
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