The antidote to anti-public lands extremism

[struggle4progress]

Posted: Sunday, March 6, 2016 9:00 am
By BRIAN SYBERT

... neither the armed militants at Malheur nor the suit-clad lands transfer zealots in Utah and DC have anticipated how much the American people, Westerners in particular, value public lands. In January, Colorado College released its sixth-annual bipartisan Conservation in the West Poll, showing that Western voters, including Montanans, see American public lands as integral to our economy and way of life and overwhelmingly oppose efforts to weaken and seize those lands.

The poll .. revealed that Westerners strongly support people working together to find common-ground solutions to public land challenges, and herein lies the antidote to the toxic anti-public lands agenda represented by the likes of the Bundy gang and the American Lands Council. Community-driven collaboratives not only result in the protection of wild places, the creation of new jobs, and the advancement of our public lands legacy, they also nourish our nation’s democracy ...

In 2015, the Blackfoot Clearwater Stewardship Project celebrated 10 years of hard work restoring a watershed that provides essential habitat for grizzly bears, bull trout, elk, mountain goats, and other key species. In addition to promoting outdoor recreation and providing opportunities for forest restoration, the BCSP has proposed designating 87,000 acres of wilderness additions to the Bob Marshall, Scapegoat, and Mission Mountain Wilderness Areas and a new snowmobile area north of Ovando.

Similarly, the Kootenai Forest Stakeholders Coalition in Northwest Montana has overcome 30 years of intense local conflict over management of the Kootenai National Forest and unified around an agreement that includes more than 180,000 acres of wilderness designation, doubling the size of the Cabinet Mountain Wilderness and forever protecting the Yaak Valley roadless areas and the Scotchman Peaks. Their agreement also includes thoughtful recommendations for sustainable timber harvest and a proposal for expanded snowmobile use ...

http://www.dailyinterlake.com/members/opinion-the-antidote-to-anti-public-lands-extremism/article_4061a6c8-e338-11e5-9062-7fe71045634b.html

[love_katz]

1. Thank you for posting this.

I'm not a huge fan of snow mobiles, but I am glad to read that many voters in Western States are aware of the importance of the continued existence and maintenance of public lands. The horrid takeover and armed occupation of the Malheur Wildlife Refuge was miserably disheartening and I hope nothing like that ever happens again.

[2naSalit]

2. I am one of those

westerners who wants our public lands to stay in the care of the feds. I don't like all the management policies, I don't think they are protective enough and many policies are not based on "best available data..." but that is the system we have developed in our social contract. When I think a policy needs changing I am willing to work through the steps prescribed in our social contract by convincing others to see why it needs changing... or not and accepting the response.

Not enough of our citizenry is aware of this serious issue in proper context, I do my best to educate but I am only one person.

[Nay]

3. During my residency in Montana and Colorado, I saw some bait

and switch type things -- there would be an uproar about the Feds overstepping, then a cry for local control, and . . . if that actually happened, it was because some locals in the know were ready to sell off lands/contracts out from under the clueless locals. Needless to say, the ppl in the know made plenty of money in the transactions and the real locals got ripped off.