chuck-e-cheese or the earth?
by problembear
VS
i went to my first real live wilderness hearing in 1973. it was a hearing to decide the fate of the oregon dunes natural area near florence oregon. Jim Monteith, andy kerr, tim lillebo marcy willow and i traveled from eugene to grants pass oregon. when we arrived i realized that there were about 100 wilderness supporters present to face down an entire room full of real live gun packing dune buggy enthusiasts, four wheelers and mostly just plain angry local folks and timber beasts who were against anything that their friends and employers were.
This was just one of many hearings that senator mark hatfield and his staff were holding in several communities around oregon to get a sense of how the citizens of oregon viewed the proposal to protect this area from further erosion by four wheelers and dune buggies. geologists testified that the dunes would only last another 50 years at the rate that gas guzzling machines were knocking them down. we testified about the value of the wild plants and the unique environment of course, which only resulted in cat calls and boos from the locals. they testified the usual things about the proposed wilderness area impinging on their right as free born americans to go wherever the hell they wanted to in their sand rails and their massively jacked up to ten feet high cab 4×4 machines. it also didn’t help much that the town’s mascot was the caveman…..
in the middle of the hearing a very magical thing happened which turned the war-like atmosphere of the packed auditorium on its ear…..
a very prim, white haired, tiny, older woman who amazingly wore the proverbial red tennis shoes approached the lectern. she cleared her throat, adjusted her very thick glasses to face the senator and began….
“i am from medford oregon and one of my favorite recreations is to hike in and view the warblers of the oregon coast many of which are found in diversity and abundance among the oregon dunes national park. they congregate around the fresh water springs and sparse vegetation which exists like little oases to satisfy their very tiny needs. from bristle cone pines to the rhododendron these little birds find sustenance in the tiniest and most rare of environments which machines are threatening to destroy within my nieces and nephews lifetimes. i have no children of my own. i am all alone now except for my birds.
i have never owned an RV or a camper. i used to camp out on the dunes when i was younger in tents. i am older now but i still get out and hike wherever i can…..
(at this point this tiny older woman turned around to face the thousand or so four wheelers who were laughing at her)
……we don’t need to spend a lot of money to enjoy the wild places that are left. it is possible to enjoy life without using expensive machines……
(then she turned her steely blue eyes behind those owl lenses around to face senator hatfield and the members of the committee and staff as she finished with this haymaker….
………senator, i have lived my entire life on a librarian’s salary, (she banged her tiny fist on the lectern) and i have lived a damned good life.”
senator hatfield and all the participants in that room sat chastised and dumb-founded by this tiny brave woman’s short speech. in fact, it was the only time in senator hatfield’s career that he was ever lectured to. in front of the tv cameras and facing a hostile crowd, this unknown woman held us all in the palm of her hand with her humble words of support and remonstrance at the wasteful way most all of us live our lives. her speech was an indictment of the vacuousness of modern life and at the same time it was a ringing endorsement of the necessity to protect every single piece of what is still wild in order not so much to recreate but to survive.
i spent from 1973 to 1984 helping to protect oregon’s wild lands and probably traded away a promising career as a well paid petroleum or mineral geologist to do it. i watched fellow students i knew become successful, but never happier than i was. in fact, most of them were jealous of my life, although i always lived hand to mouth to support my passion to protect wild land.
this is why i am so hard on many of the new well-paid professional wilderness advocates who are trading away so much of the future of montana’s wild lands in exchange for a handful of silver (600,000 acres) out of 3.3 million.
i am beholden to no one. i have a very modest life with the one i love which we both enjoy immensely. and i have never compromised on wilderness one inch in my entire life and i don’t intend to start now. when i remember that lady who has most certainly passed from this earth many decades ago, i am renewed by her truth about simplicity as the only path to happiness. i am reminded of her also when i see those who have accumulated much wealth but who will never see the value of wilderness and i realize just how lucky i am.
when the political puppets of power reach out to seek compromise from those who occupy the position and the important task of defending wild land, i suppose it is tempting to serve them. but i will never know how that feels, thanks to that lady. i only know one thing i have learned in 37 years of fighting for wilderness. compromise never saved one acre of wild land. but courage and sacrifice has.
bob dylan said it best when he said….you gotta serve somebody.
when it comes to protecting wilderness you must make a choice between the tempting political tap on the shoulder which allows entry to the chuck-e-cheese like romp room in washington dc which rewards those who collaborate VS the earth.
i have lived my entire life on a blue collar bear’s salary and i too, have lived a damned good life. just like that long gone poor librarian, i choose the earth.
oh- and by the way, that area was saved. and mark hatfield is on record as saying it was that old lady’s lecture to him and all of us that pushed it over the top.
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4&20 blackbirds 
June 19, 2010 at 3:55 pm
Doesn’t really matter. We’re all going to dead anyway.
****(Daily Mail)- As the scientist who helped eradicate smallpox he certainly know a thing or two about extinction.
And now Professor Frank Fenner, emeritus professor of microbiology at the Australian National University, has predicted that the human race will be extinct within the next 100 years.
He has claimed that the human race will be unable to survive a population explosion and ‘unbridled consumption.’
Fenner told The Australian newspaper that ‘homo sapiens will become extinct, perhaps within 100 years.’
‘A lot of other animals will, too,’ he added.****
Rip ’em while you can.
June 19, 2010 at 4:07 pm
i have a suggestion for posterity bs….
get yourself a video camera and record that speech. then seal the disk in a box that says open in 50 years…..
then we will see how your offspring feel about such a callous attitude toward the earth and their future.
…. a caveman if i ever met one.
June 20, 2010 at 8:18 am
GREAT post, P-Bear. I, too, have been testifying on wilderness bills since the 70s and couldn’t agree more with you on how it looks these days. Funny thing is, as we age we’re supposed to turn into the RVers who “camp” in the Wal-Mart parking lots with their microwave ovens, washer-dryers, big-screen TVs and monster rigs. Instead, just like your ancient librarian, the truth is that we can still hike into pure wilderness (Big W) and find solace, renewal, joy, hope and strength with nothing more than our eyes and ears.
Thanks for the uplifting message on Father’s Day — it should remind all of us fathers, once again, of our responsibility to future generations to leave them something other than Big Swede’s black (and all-too-obvious) vision that “we’re all gonna die.”
June 20, 2010 at 9:38 am
Wow! Talk about altering perceptions. Mine of you, PB, are fixed and corrected, and I humbly apologize for anything I might have said in the past that disrespected you. This post was excellent. Your very best.
I especially admire the fact that the plural of oasis, “oases”, was spelled correctly.
When I was on the Council of MWA back in the 1990’s, Governor Racicot was running what were called “Consensus Councils” where they brought together bickering partisans on various issues. (It was actually the result of a bill passed in the legislature.) We did not know the word then, but what was going on was “triangulation.” I know that bugs you, but the concept has been widely studied and adopted, and is frequently used by industry these days to stuff enviros. They get you to a table where a “mediator,” who is really part of the opposition, steals your underpants and then later hoists them up a flag pole.
John Gatchell represented MWA at the CC that was to bring together loggers and wilderness people. Discussions were held, but then oddly the mediator would go out after the meetings and attribute deals that were not made to the enviros. We on the MWA Council were livid to be misrepresented in such a way, but the process went on in that manner not just with us, but with some of the others as well, with Racicot himself attributing false statements to another Helena group that eludes me.
But Gatchell adhered to the concept, and insisted that MWA stay in. I am proud to say that I participated in a council meeting from which Gatchell (extremely influential) was absent, and wherein MWA withdrew from the process. I read aloud a letter from another participant in a different CC talking about how Racicot had deliberately misrepresented their position. Our manners were later criticized, for being abrupt and not informing allies of what we were doing, but the point is that we removed ourselves from triangulation.
No matter the whining of Stevens, Singer and the other Democrats, who have not worked wilderness issues, it is vital that enviros pull out of this “process” and work it from the outside. Pressure has to be brought to bear, and it cannot be done from within.
June 20, 2010 at 10:07 am
The group whose name eluded me was MEIC, Montana Environmental Information Center.
June 20, 2010 at 10:16 am
mark and g.o. – if you don’t use a compass it is easy to take the wrong fork. and then once lost, it is impossible to find your bearings. MWA has long since lost its compass.
i also believe the democratic party has lost their compass, and i think i know why. for thirty years democrats and wilderness groups have been under seige by the far right who possesses and uses their compass to great effect. the far right and the destroyers that they support are heading to hell and are taking them all with them if we do not find ours soon.
we need to learn to quit reacting to their attacks and strike out on our own path. until then, we are the defensive lost tribes of israel wandering in the desert.
that librarian was always my compass for wilderness just like old long gone missoula democrats like doug and alice campbell were my compass for the democratic party. when they passed, democrats lost their compass around here just like the national democratic party has lost its way ever since bobby kennedy was killed and reagan came on the scene to spin them around in circles and blind fold them and send them staggering toward the precipace of compromise.
we need to find another party or get the democrats to find their compass again. as for mwa, i don’t think much can be done there except clear the house of the entire staff and free them up to do what they are suited to do best- work for industry or politicians. they have lost all credibility when it comes to defending wilderness.
and jon tester, who i had much hope about can still be turned around. instead of exploiting division and fomenting treachery behind closed doors in order to make unholy compromises, why not schedule some local field hearings?
you never know when someone like that librarian will show up and you can learn something. that is what is great about the old methods of holding public hearings. it may be divisive at first, but if it is handled right, we can all learn to understand one another.
shutting people out of the process is not what the democratic party or conservation should be about in this country. and jon, if you need a good old geologist’s compass, i have one i don’t use anymore. i would like to support you. you just need to give us a chance to help you.
June 20, 2010 at 10:36 am
Public hearings are not controllable. Often things like your librarian popping up to speak happen, the the process goes out of control. Ergo, Tester avoided them.
The object now might be to force a public hearing. How can Bingham, Stevens and Singer oppose such a simple concept?
How to proceed?
June 20, 2010 at 10:32 am
“I don’t know the key to success, but the key to failure is trying to please everybody.” – Bill Cosby
wilderness is not replaceable. once it is gone it is gone forever. and anyone who watches what is happening in the world today and is even remotely concerned about survival of this earth realizes that all of the wild land that is left is little enough to save for our children’s children’s sake.
June 20, 2010 at 10:52 am
mark hatfield wasn’t perfect but he was what i would call a “statesman” montana hasn’t had a statesman since pat williams retired in 1997, and he was about half the statesman hatfield was. i hear metcalf and mansfield were but i was not here when they presided so i take the old timers word for it.
there was a time that democrats knew how to reach out to the people but now they seem afraid of the people so
much of that ability is lost now in the era of democratic compromise and reaction to the far right.
but i do remember that field hearings were a great way to get people involved.
first it is important to hold congressional field hearings with full participation by all parties who want to participate (not just a hand-picked few) and hold them on saturdays when people who work for a living can attend. hold the hearings in at least five of the following list of communities:
Butte, Missoula, Bozeman, Billings, Great Falls, Helena, Kalispell, Lewistown, Dillon, Havre.
that is about all i can remember. maybe if democrats want to reinvigorate the party again they can start listening to the last of their leaders- pat williams again. he has been shut out of the process by the ones who have lost their way a long time ago. he might be able to give them a bearing again.
i may be just a bear but i know one thing- democrats in this country and this state had better start engaging with the people again and stop this nonsense of closed door meetings if they want to ever win again.
June 20, 2010 at 11:18 am
Williams was a good man, but then one day he just quit. Before being the lone rep, he shared our two seats with Ron Marlinee. There is an office in downtown Billings with a sign on a door that says “The Honorable Ron Marlinee.” I have long wondered what happened to the real one.
Mansfield was a mixed bag at best, revered in the State due to his Majority Leader status, but put in that spot by LBJ because he lacked backbone. But he did speak out against Vietnam at a time when doing such a thing was not well-regarded, and so does deserve some of the honor he is accorded.
Conrad Burns has office buildings named after him, Lee Metcalf and Frank Church wilderness areas. That says it all. One wonders if Tester has gone down the river of no return.
June 20, 2010 at 9:12 pm
I think Tester has gone down the river of no return. Meddling in DC’s gun laws to make the NRA happy? Proposing cuts in unemployment benefits because he’s suddenly worried about the deficit? Shame he’s running scared from Rehberg and running for re-election already. This is one Missoulian who won’t be lifting a finger or writing any checks on his behalf.
June 20, 2010 at 11:06 am
Tokarski is absolutely right on. Not only did Racicot implement the Consensus Council to “resolve natural resource issue,” he went on as a member of the Western Governors’ Association (an industry-funded group) to bring that policy to print in a publication titled “En Libra.” If you haven’t seen it, check it out. Triangulation is one thing to call it. A clever strategy to divide and conquer the environmental community is another. The hand-picked groups cut the deal and then send it to the legislative process, where it gets cut some more…never in the right direction. Those left out of the deal-cutting are then relegated to the title “extremists,” primarily if they advocate for greater environmental protection.
The actual sequence of the Consensus Council history, however, is slightly different than Mark described. Racicot first hired a guy to staff the Consensus Council, the legislature then formalized it, and several sessions killed attempts to make it a permanent new function of government instead of pilot program. They just didn’t want to spend the money, really.
The rest of the strategy, which follows in an undeniable sequence, is the use of the term “collaboration” by both state and federal governments as the key to solving all problems. I suspect if you did a thorough search of Forest Service and BLM documents after 1999 you’d be shocked at the frequency with which that particular misleading term shows up. Do the same with “environmental extremists” and see why this was not a mistake, but a strategy from the same folks that are still running the rape and scrape show.
As we know, that’s now the basis of all Jon Tester’s arguments, since the substance of the bill is being contested by the Senate’s ENR committee. Process, of course, doesn’t equal policy…never did, never will. It’s the curtain that the wizards hide behind while they rob us (and the future) blind.
But hey, get 5 individuals in a room to agree on something and suddenly it’s a “policy” that all of us should just go along with because Tim Baker and John Gatchell of MWA, Bruce Farling of Trout Ulimited and Tom France of the National Wildlife Federation come to an agreement on how to cut up the remaining wildlands cake with a couple of small mill owners — oh, I mean “timber partners.”
Amazing how well that divide and conquer strategy is working and, quite frankly P-Bear, if Tester continues to cling to that model for future policy decisions (including his insistence that it become the preferred method on a national level in his latest bill re-write), I’m not sure it’s possible to support him at any level. As all bears know, you make your bed and then you sleep in it.
Jon should be listening — and holding REAL hearings as you both suggested — but I fear he’s being “handled” by “political strategists” these days and, unfortunately, has been since almost the day he left Montana for DC. I’m still waiting for his speech on the benefits of organic farming and the perils of pesticides — but that hasn’t happened. Nor has his promise to repeal the Patriot Act. And as we know, the wars he promised to end go on and on and on.
We haven’t forgotten…and it’s getting harder and harder to forgive.
June 20, 2010 at 11:32 am
lazy democrats long ago handed over all decisionmaking to smart but sniveling wonks like jim messina who avoid real people like we had the plague (and sunlight also apparently judging by the pasty palor) have removed the democratic party from the people and alienated most of the working people i talk to. they are trending like a landslide toward the far right if we continue to allow workaholic control guys like messina (who looks like he could use a hike by the way) to control the party.
public hearings are messy but at least people feel included. the message is not filtered so everyone knows where they stand. including the people is the first step for the democrats to start working their way back up to where the trail forked a long time ago.
there are a lot more registered democrats in the us and montana than registered republicans so why do democrats have such a hard time winning?
because they alienate their own and keep us out of the process. regular folks feel helpless. and when you feel helpless, just like post war germany, even evil tyrants like the far right begin to look good to you.
the answer for democrats is to throw away the wonks and start using the true north bearings of the compass again.
June 20, 2010 at 11:45 am
Kudos pbear. Great post.
June 20, 2010 at 5:10 pm
Thanks PB, That IS very inspirational.
June 21, 2010 at 6:52 am
The following three on-line comments in support of the FJRA are exactly the same.
The first one is from a regular anonymous commenter who goes by “Zahnie Bunyan.” The second one is just from “anonymous.”
While the third comment is from Gabe Furshong, the Montana Wilderness Association’s Forest Jobs and Recreation Act Campaign Director. In the past, Mr. Furshong has also posted on this topic anonymously as “Wolf Creek.”
MWA’s paid staffers resorting to anonymous blog comments to pimp the FJRA is a nice touch don’t you think?
@ http://billingsgazette.com/news/state-and-regional/montana/article_d9ab55c0-7a9a-11df-ac1b-001cc4c002e0.html?mode=comments
Zahnie Bunyan said on: June 18, 2010, 12:14 pm
What public land managers and public land advocates have failed to understand for so many years is that public land is about partnership. Senator Tester gets it. He doesn’t take the myopic view that our forests are just about wilderness, or timber harvest, or recreation. He is working hard to reward partnerships that take a more integrated view of the forest – a forest where you can get a paycheck, ride your snowmobile, and hunt world class elk across vast tracks of roadless land.
————–
@ http://mtlowdown.blogspot.com/2010/06/tester-unveils-new-draft-of-forest-jobs.html#comments
Anonymous said…
What public land managers and public land advocates have failed to understand for so many years is that public land is about partnership. Senator Tester gets it. He doesn’t take the myopic view that our forests are just about wilderness, or timber harvest, or recreation. He is working hard to reward partnerships that take a more integrated view of the forest – a forest where you can get a paycheck, ride your snowmobile, and hunt world class elk across vast tracks of roadless land.
June 18, 2010 12:17 PM
—————
@ http://missoulian.com/news/state-and-regional/article_e17668c4-7a29-11df-be8c-001cc4c03286.html?mode=comments
gfurshong said on: June 18, 2010, 1:12 pm
What public land managers and public land advocates have failed to understand for so many years is that public land is about partnership. Senator Tester gets it. He doesn’t take the myopic view that our forests are just about wilderness, or timber harvest, or recreation. He is working hard to reward partnerships that take a more integrated view of the forest – a forest where you can get a paycheck, ride your snowmobile, and hunt world class elk across vast tracks of roadless land.
——–
To be honest, these young MWA guys lack the experience and knowledge base to be telling the public the policy implications of Tester’s bill or the ENR Committee’s draft. They simply have little real world experience with forest policy issues and now are being paid by MWA to advocate a position they really know very little about. Just thought we should throw that out on the table.
If the goal is protecting some Wilderness in Montana and getting some restoration and fuel reduction work accomplished, the ENR Committee’s draft, while not perfect, is a step in the right direction and superior to both Senator Tester’s original bill and his new proposal. As we move forward, let’s hope Senator Tester and the collaborators give the ENR Committee’s draft significantly more consideration than just proclaiming it “Dead On Arrival.”
Fact is, the ENR Committee’s draft would protect over 660,000 acres in Montana as Wilderness. However, the Committee’s draft doesn’t undermine Wilderness by allowing military helicopters to land in Wilderness or ranchers to ride their ATV’s in Wilderness, as Senator Tester’s draft allows. By any objective measure, when it comes to Wilderness, the ENR Committee draft is better. So what does this say about MWA and their inexperienced, anonymous posters who continue to pimp Tester’s bill, no matter what the specifics?
While the ENR Committee’s draft dropped the controversial mandated logging provisions – which the Forest Service called unachievable, unsustainable and not reasonable – Senator Tester’s new draft, unfortunately, re-inserts the logging mandates. Based on the ENR Committee’s draft, it seems pretty clear that the Committee and Chairman Bingaman will not allow this bill out of Committee if it includes logging mandates. So it seems as if right now Wilderness designation for 660,000 acres of Montana’s wildlands is being held captive by the timber industry and Senator Tester’s insistence on the U.S. Congress mandating logging, which would be an unprecedented and unwise step.
The truth of the matter is that for a decade many of the fifty plus conservation organizations that are a part of our Last Best Place Wildlands Campaign has been working the Forest Service, communities, elected officials and workers on bona-fide restoration or fuel reduction projects. Folks like Furshong and Porter have totally not been honest about that fact…but then again, at least Furshong’s paycheck requires that he ignores these facts.
So too, Tester bill supporters have been less than honest about the amount of positive work moving forward on national forests in Montana. The Forest Service in our region finished last year with more timber volume under contract than at any point in the past decade. According to the Beaverhead-Deerlodge National Forest supervisor, they too sold more timber last year (over 30 million board feet) than at any point in a decade. Quite literally tens of thousands of acres of fuel reduction and logging work is already approved by the Forest Service (or will be shortly). The same is true of watershed and road restoration projects. Literally there is a backlog of nearly $100 million worth of work in MT and N. ID. Maybe Congress should have been properly funding this watershed and road restoration work as groups like ours have advocated for for nearly 15 years now.
Obviously, with the huge economic crisis we’re in – a crisis based on over-consumption and over-development – demand for lumber is still about 50% what it was a few years ago and lumber prices are still near historic lows. So there’s not really a whole bunch of demand for timber right now. So do we really need politicians stepping in and mandating logging? What’s next? Gulf Coast politicians stepping in to mandate deep water drilling in the Gulf? Or Appalachian politicians mandating mountain top removal coal mining in that region?
I can understand why supporters of the FJRA are resistant to the ENR Committee changes, but when it comes to preserving Wilderness and America’s public lands legacy, as well as getting some good watershed restoration and fuel reduction work accomplished, you folks just can’t deny that the ENR Committee’s draft, while not perfect, is a much better framework to work from. Plus, it might actually pass. Hopefully you folks come to this realization soon. Thanks.
June 21, 2010 at 9:33 am
Some of you old timers might remember the Kootenai-Lolo Accord as another attempt by some of the same characters to give away the forested parts in exchange for rocks and ice. Sad saga.
June 21, 2010 at 11:17 am
the saddest part is tester is chasing the votes of the people who will turn on him as soon as a republican opponent is announced anyway….
tester is being lured into a trap by a bill conrad burns and his friends in the timber industry first proposed in 2002, when there was still a market for timber. they will stab him in the back when they get what they want from him.
same goes for MWA. they can expect to see those hearty pats on the back from their new found friends in the timber industry to disappear quickly after they have pushed the last of their chips into the pile and lost it all for a cab ride home.
good luck getting your real friends to help any of you then.
that phone is gonna get real quiet.
June 21, 2010 at 11:30 am
I am somewhat befuddled by this train of thought. It is very similar with Obama – why is he continually reaching out to his “enemies” wile his friends languish? When will the real Obama come through?
If I said, with Tester, Obama, Baucus … that what you see is quite real, would it make any sense? If you have two parties, one financier; if you are rewarded for serving power and not punished for neglecting “friends”, you would behave as they behave. It makes sense.
Until progressives learn to punish misguided politicians, progressives will always get the shaft. Yes, I know that means that Republicans will take office, but during all of the years of Burns, our roadless lands were protected by unified support. Now that support is fractured.
Mission accomplished, Jon?
June 21, 2010 at 12:16 pm
divide and conquer ala karl rove has replaced real democratic inclusionary politics of give and take in this country. the democrats have been buffaloed into adopting the same tactics of the party that follows the road to Hell.
until it turns back it is heading toward the same precipice.
June 24, 2010 at 7:05 am
I had to chuckle a little when I read the comments from Mr. Furshong, MWA’s FJRA organizer over at George Wuerthner’s excellent perspective piece on Tester’s bill over at NewWest.net titled “Tester’s Response Poor Strategy” http://www.newwest.net/topic/article/testers_response_poor_strategy/C564/L564/).
Mr. Furshong stated:
“Wilderness philosophers from other states can postulate all they want about Montana politics – such chatter will never result in actual legislation to protect 500,000 acres of ground in the largest National Forest in the lower 48 states and create new jobs at Montana mills that have a record of stewardship best practices.
You know what? Mr. Furshong’s dismissive comment is striking when compared with the fact that just this week the Senate’s Energy and Natural Resources Committee approved 26 bills establishing new Wilderness areas and dealing with other public lands issues. Those 26 bills were approved by the ENR Committee en bloc, by unanimous consent.
Reader’s will recall that Senator Tester’s FJRA is currently before this same Senate ENR Committee. Sometime in May, the ENR Committee sent Senator Tester a draft revision of this bill, which his office shared with the collaborators. Once the media questioned Senator Tester about the ENR’s draft he proclaimed it “Dead on arrival.”
So now, on June 20, the Senate ENR Committee approved 26 bills dealing with Wilderness and public lands issues
Something I’d encourage Wilderness supporters to consider is the very likely fact that if Senator Tester and the collaborators (Mr. Furshong and MWA included) would have accepted the ENR Committee’s draft revisions when they were shared about a month ago, it too would have been approved by the Committee this week.
So despite Mr. Furshong’s claim that “such chatter will never result in actual legislation” it sure seems to me that MWA and the other collaborator’s insistence on mandated logging and motors in Wilderness might have cost all of us the opportunity to designate over 660,000 acres as Wilderness and get some good restoration and fuel reduction work accomplished as proposed in the ENR Committee’s draft.
Some details of the ENR Committee’s draft:
• It would protect over 660,000 acres in Montana as Wilderness. However, it doesn’t undermine Wilderness by allowing military helicopters to land in Wilderness or ranchers to ride their ATV’s in Wilderness, as Senator Tester’s draft allows.
• It drops the controversial and unprecedented mandated logging levels on the Beaverhead-Deerlodge and Kootenai National Forests. It adds language requiring that any project carried out under the bill must fully maintain old growth forests and retain large trees, while focus any hazardous fuel reduction efforts on small diameter trees.
• It would also establish a “National Forest Jobs and Restoration Initiative” that would “preserve and create local jobs in rural communities…to sustain the local logging and restoration infrastructure and community capacity…to promote cooperation and collaboration…to restore or improve the ecological function of priority watersheds…to carry out collaborative projects to restore watersheds and reduce the risk of wildfires to communities.” Much of this work would be carried out through stewardship contracting.