Friday, 14 Sep 2001

MOAB, Utah

Today is a big day for comment letters. Next Monday is the end of the comment period for four major items, including six grazing allotment plans, a 10-million-board-feet timber sale, the Uinta National Forest Draft Plan, and two rollerchop projects in virgin pinyon/juniper woodland. I can’t possibly do justice to these important issues, so I must try to prioritize time spent on them according to what we’ve told our magnanimous supporters we will be tackling. Perhaps even more important than commenting on these proposals: The newsletter is overdue, and we need to get our GIS road analysis map and roadless area inventory
to the Manti-La Sal forest engineer who is working on revising the forest travel plan. In addition to all this, I need to coordinate our little outing to a local peak this weekend, while trying not to let all the other pressing issues crowd in until I’ve cleared a few of these off my desk. Whew! Sounds more like a Monday than a Friday.

Southern Utahns are good at keeping this stuff secret.

Photo: Dan Kent.

It is hard to keep the goal in focus when there are so many potentially destructive projects occurring in our forests, and you are working alone on one small aspect of the whole. Of course, I think our corner of the world is the center of the universe, beautiful beyond compare, more worthy of protection than perhaps even my own mom. And thank goodness so many feel the same way about their corners of the universe. The computer and the web have strengthened one of the environmental movement’s greatest assets — shared information. The federal government regulates all public lands with the same stack of laws. Theoretically, that which improves public lands management in Alabama will also work in Alaska.

Shared information can allow small groups to be effective early on, if they tie in to the successes of veterans. Newcomers can also be effective just by virtue of the consideration extended to a fresh face, a new opportunity. Cynically, I must admit the only lasting successes we’ve had were when we made a stink in the media about the Forest Service working cooperatively with a group that was cutting ATV trails through sensitive, wildlife-rich parts of the forest. We found friends in the media who were willing to expose the misdeeds, and soon after we received four-page denials of any cooperative agreement to maintain and construct ATV trails involving the Forest Service. A trail that had been reopened after 30 years of no use and extended with no public comment was closed … temporarily, pending review. As the dust settled, the Forest Supervisor signed a clandestine contract nearly identical to the one they had just vehemently denied involvement with the month before. For people who believe in due process, that really burst our bubble.

A virgin forest in a steep, roadless municipal watershed that will be cut to “reduce risk of a bark beetle infestation” in the Abajo Mountains.

Photo: Dan Kent.

Being an impediment to forest destruction is necessary, but it gets old being a negative force, always jamming the gears of extraction and development. That’s why we’ve come up with something positive and proactive to do for our forest: We are developing a citizen’s alternative for the Forest Plan revision process. We are tapping the vast pool of knowledge and compassion in the biologists, recreationists, and other forest lovers in the area to design a management plan that will emphasize ecosystem health, self-reliance, and sustainability. We will construct this plan under the assumption that all life is sacred and deserving of respect. (Some people have questioned the need to extend this to mosquitoes and biting flies, but I think we can win them over once the skis have come out again.) Intangible values, such as the value of wild places to the health of the soul, and very tangible but ignored values, such as the importance of a fully populated, naturally self-regulating and interconnected, not isolated, system of wild areas, will help guide us. An ambitious project, but not a new idea — the Southern Rockies Ecosystem Project has created a fine model. The Utah Wilderness Coalition’s wilderness inventory criteria has also provided a fine model for our wilderness proposal, a key component of the citizen’s alternative and already complete.

All right, it might be an overwhelmingly busy Friday, but I feel like I’m sitting on the shoulders of giants. There is strength in diversity, and there is strength in sharing what we learn. Now, back to that fascinating section of the DEIS for the GSRMP detailing PFCs for the PCUs in the AERP.