Obama: No Friend to the Forests.

[Robb]

Nonsense.

Lest we forget the Omnibus Public Land Management Act of 2009, signed by Obama in March. We have short memories here, but this was only four months ago.

2,094,702 acres of new federally-designated Wilderness Area. This law designates 52 new wilderness areas and adds acreage to 26 existing areas.

This is big "W" Wilderness. Exceptional protection. Requires an act of Congress to reverse. No motorized anything. USFS even has to use hand saws and walk in if there's a fire (with very, very, very few exceptions).

Look at the raw acres here. Many familiar names, and many new ones:

Brush Mountain East Wilderness: 3,743
Brush Mountain Wilderness: 4,794
Bull of the Woods Wilderness: 10,180
Cahuilla Mountain Wilderness: 5,585
Canaan Mountain Wilderness: 44,531
Chuckwalla Mountains Wilderness: 12,815
Clackamas Wilderness: 9,470
Copper Salmon Wilderness: 13,700
Cottonwood Canyon Wilderness: 11,712
Cottonwood Forest Wilderness: 2,643
Cougar Canyon Wilderness: 10,409
Cranberry Wilderness: 11,951
Deep Creek North Wilderness: 4,262
Deep Creek Wilderness: 3,284
Doc's Pass Wilderness: 17,294
Dolly Sods Wilderness: 7,156
Dominguez Canyon Wilderness: 66,280
Frank Church-River of No Return Wilderness (+10/-10 acre land exchange)
Garden Mountain Wilderness: 3,291
Goose Creek Wilderness: 98
Granite Mountain Wilderness: 34,342
Hoover Wilderness: 79,820
Hunting Camp Creek Wilderness: 8,470
Indian Peaks Wilderness: 1,000
John Krebs Wilderness: 39,740
John Muir Wilderness: 70,411
Joshua Tree Wilderness: 36,700
Kimberling Creek Wilderness: 263
LaVerkin Creek Wilderness: 445
Lewis Fork Wilderness: 308
Little Jacks Creek Wilderness: 50,929
Little Wilson Creek Wilderness: 1,845
Lower White River Wilderness: 2,870
Magic Mountain Wilderness: 12,282
Mark O. Hatfield Wilderness: 25,960
Mount Hood Wilderness: 20,160
Mountain Lake Wilderness: 5,476
North Fork Owyhee Wilderness: 43,413
Oregon Badlands Wilderness: 29,301
Orocopia Mountains Wilderness: 4,635
Otter Creek Wilderness: 698
Owens River Headwaters Wilderness: 14,721
Owyhee River Wilderness: 267,328
Palen/McCoy Wilderness: 22,645
Peters Mountain Wilderness: 1,203
Pinto Mountains Wilderness: 24,404
Pleasant View Ridge Wilderness: 26,757
Pole Creek Wilderness: 12,533
Raccoon Branch Wilderness: 4,223
Red Butte Wilderness: 1,537
Red Mountain Wilderness: 18,729
Roaring Plains West Wilderness: 6,792
Roaring River Wilderness: 36,550
Rocky Mountain National Park Wilderness: 249,339
Sabinoso Wilderness: 16,030
Salmon-Huckleberry Wilderness: 16,780
Santa Rosa Wilderness: 2,149
Sequoia-Kings Canyon Wilderness: 45,186
Shawvers Run Wilderness: 2,219
Slaughter Creek Wilderness: 3,901
Soda Mountain Wilderness: 24,100
South Fork San Jacinto Wilderness: 20,217
Spice Run Wilderness: 6,030
Spring Basin Wilderness: 6,382
Stone Mountain Wilderness: 3,270
Taylor Creek Wilderness: 32
White Mountains Wilderness: 229,993
Zion Wilderness: 124,406

Perspective. It's important. :patriot:

Note: visit the new areas online, and see more news of legislators and citizens saving wild places at Wilderness.net.

[villager]

1. And yet the to-be-clearcut area in the Tongass was *designated roadless*

...so it makes you wonder to what degree these words can ultimately be trusted...

Protected or not? Roadless or not?

[Robb]

2. "Roadless" does not equal Wilderness.

"Roadless" is a flawed protection management notion, IMO. Because, for example, there are roads in areas we attempted to designate "roadless."

Wilderness is as forever as you can get. Read the link on the Act.

[villager]

3. It should, at a minimum, equal "roadless," and apparently does not

n/t

[Robb]

5. Actually, Wilderness is far better protection.

For example, the 2.5 million acres of Wilderness designated in the Tongass (in 1990 IIRC) is still there. And will be.

Read about the differences in designations, and decide for yourself where we should put our efforts.

[villager]

7. oh, I love wilderness protection, and would convert all the national forests, if I could

In the meantime, though, it'd be nice if the lesser protections on the books actually meant something.

though I've been through enough malignant Republican, and feckless Democratic, administrations to know that they don't....

[LWolf]

4. Well, you know how politicians like to name things.

"Healthy Forests Initiative," "No Child Left Behind," etc..

[Robb]

6. For crying out loud.

...You as much as anyone should know the difference between Wilderness and other areas of forest management??

[LWolf]

10. Yes.

I oppose building roads in "roadless" forests.

I oppose clear-cutting.

[Robb]

11. Good to hear. nt

[imdjh]

8. So now you have to be healthy or wealthy to visit those places?

Why don't they just ban people entirely?

[timeforpeace]

12. See your point, but you just can't have roads if you want it left pristine.

[imdjh]

13. Like I said, ban people entirely.

I recall reading once that Teddy Roosevelt would have been appalled by the "bluestone paths" put in the national parks so that people like Franklin Roosevelt can go see nature too. I suppose Robert Redford and his horse and a national geographic film crew can go in there and take pictures so the rest of us can watch it on TV.

I find the small parcel designations especially suspicious. I'd like to know whose houses border these parcels. Pardon me for that suspicion, but I have been witness to decades of waterfront property owners trying to ban jetskis behind environmental concerns, when what they really want to do is reduce public access to their view.

[Robb]

14. Good grief.

Sometimes I think if Obama could cure cancer, some folks would complain he's in the tank for the beef council. :eyes:

[imdjh]

15. Obama has little to do with it.

He probably hasn't been to these places either. He probably knows about as much about them as anyone who read the list- someone else made the list and if anything he signed it.

If you don't think these designations are political, fine, but rolling your eyes isn't evidence of your superior knowledge on the subject.

[tandot]

9. K & R