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UNCOMMON GROUND MIKE JOPEK KEEPING PACE
GUEST COLUMN EDWARD MONNIG WILDERNESS AND COLLABORATION
OWITH GROWTH VER A DOZEN YEARS AGO THE
the outdoors. Haskill is the primary municipal drinking watershed and pro- tecting these lands made sense.
That means six new miles of managed trail, two new trailheads, and new winter access. All this plus more as private dona- tions pay for recreational improvement in the Haskill area over the upcoming year.
Protecting the water quality owing into White sh Lake seems a big objec- tive in protecting the private and public forestlands encompassing Swift Creek. The Swift Creek Trailhead o ers pub- lic access to Smith Lake, a rebuilt sh hatchery.
Public places like Spencer Mountain still don’t enjoy a permanent conser- vation solution. These forestlands are managed by DNRC and White sh holds a short-term land use license for public recreation like biking and hiking. South Spencer and Twin Bridges trailheads o er good public access.
The White sh area trails encourages hundreds of local school kids to get out- doors and learn about their state public lands, held in trust for all Montanans to bene t education. There are numerous youth programs, guided hikes, and learn- ing opportunities at the Lion Mountain pavilion.
Newly elected councilor Katie Wil- liams was appointed by fellow members to serve on the White sh Legacy Lands Committee. In his closing remarks at the year’s rst session, councilor Feury said to Williams that pledging four years of one’s life to public service can be very rewarding and hopefully she’d do it for another four after this term.
That’s good advice. Big stu like public trails and conservation take time, yet last forever. It’s been a dozen plus years since DNRC sparked the state land board’s community-driven conservation plan.
Almost everyone in White sh agrees that conservation and public recreation are good for locals, the economy, and statewide education. Over the decades White sh has grown much faster than most places in Montana, yet managed to do a good job keeping many of the area lakes easily accessible and forestlands productive and open to the public.
I
The Wilderness Preservation Sys- tem certainly made my career with the U.S. Forest Service immeasurably more rewarding. In my nal career assign- ment, I was supervisor of the Hum- boldt-Toiyabe National Forest, a forest of 6.3 million acres, including 1.2 million acres of congressionally-designated wil- derness. In addition, the H-T has about 3 million acres of roadless areas, de-facto wilderness as it were, that was the sub- ject of intense battles to determine what part should be formally included by Congress in the Wilderness Preser- vation System.
Managing wilderness is also chal- lenging and much more than a passive exercise in “let it be.” Stewardship of designated wilderness areas is bound by the mandates of the 1964 Wilderness Act. And therein lie many of our man- agement challenges. The introductory section of the 1964 Wilderness Act is inspiring and oft-quoted: “an enduring resource of wilderness...where earth and its community of life are untrammeled by man...” But as a counterpoint to these two paragraphs of poetic vision the Wil- derness Act concludes with two pages of exceptions allowing various non-wilder- ness practices to continue. A cynic might say “Yeah right, untrammeled by man except for multiple airstrips, irrigation reservoirs and ditches, livestock graz- ing, mineral exploration and mining” – all allowed under the 1964 Act.
What lessons can we draw from these contradictions in the 1964 Act? The most stalwart wilderness proponents will point to these contradictions as ample evidence of the dangers of compromise. As executive director of the Wilderness
Society in 1964, Stewart Brandborg no doubt vigorously discussed the conces- sions that wilderness advocates and their congressional allies should make to enact a wilderness bill. In the nal analysis I believe that we would not have had a Wilderness Preservation Sys- tem instituted in 1964 without conces- sions to other interests. Alliances had to be built with some who were not fully aligned with wilderness protection. In the end the perfect did not become the enemy of the good.
And for the future?
First, we must manage designated wilderness to minimize impacts on the values outlined in the Wilderness Act and to eliminate, by all legal means, incompatible uses. Within the limits of public health and safety, ecological forces like wild re should be allowed to play their natural role. Keeping the wild in this wilderness should be our ulti- mate metric.
Second, we must proceed on the wil- derness designation question. The ght for a comprehensive statewide Montana wilderness bill has seemed never-end- ing. Progress has been piecemeal. I do not believe further progress can be made without bringing various interested par- ties to the table despite the dangers these parties might perceive in such a process. Yes, this will involve collaboration and compromise. Wilderness advocates will not be fully satis ed. Some areas may get other designations such as National Recreation Area status to accommo- date non-wilderness recreation uses and other management objectives.
I certainly cannot speak for the Mon- tana Wilderness Association or local representatives of the Wilderness Soci- ety, but I applaud their hard work on e orts such as the Blackfoot Clearwa- ter Stewardship Project as they engage other groups such as Pyramid Lumber and motorized recreation clubs. I know these groups wrestle with di cult ques- tions in meeting with other interested parties: “Have we given too much? Does this a ect our core principles?”
For me there are multiple payo s for such e orts. Not only is there the pros- pect of additional wilderness designa- tion and better stewardship of our nat- ural resources, but we also further the goal of a more civil society where citi- zens with diverse interests can exchange ideas and work together.
Department of Natural Resources
and Conservation, under Gov. Judy Martz’s administration, came to White sh pushing plans on the state’s public forestlands surrounding the lake and town.
White sh, led by former mayor Andy Feury, stepped up and said that there’s a better, more community-oriented solu- tion. A lot of locals agreed with Feury, including White sh rancher and then governor candidate Brian Schweitzer.
Schweitzer, who later served eight years as governor, did much good in White sh working with people like Feury as mayor.
A decade ago, many people like for- mer Sen. Dan Weinberg and myself spent years working state o cials and the Leg- islature to gain rights to conserve the public forestlands around White sh.
The state land board is the governor, superintendent of public education, audi- tor, secretary of state, and attorney gen- eral. It adopted the community-driven conservation plan for the public forest- lands surrounding White sh.
That was a while ago. Today there’s years worth of public land conservation ahead. Dozens of trailheads and 35 miles of managed trails await a loop around the lake. Most are permanent trails, which people in our community or grants paid to build and manage.
There are thousands of public acres of permanent conservation in the Beaver Lake area, which hundreds of locals paid to protect. It’s returned the state land board millions in new revenues.
Interconnected within the public trails, trailheads and permanently devel- opment-free forestland are lakes like Murray, Rainbow, Woods, Dollar, Boyle, Little Beaver and Beaver.
When White sh voters chose to increase their sales tax on mainly luxury items by 50 percent, from 2 percent to 3 percent, they did it big-time. Eighty-four percent of White sh voters opted to per- manently protect 3,000 plus acres of pri- vate forestlands on the other side of the lake, in Haskill Basin.
That’s great news for forestry, prop- erty taxpayers, and people who just love
N PREFACE TO COMMENTING ON Stewart Brandborg’s opinion piece
on wilderness issues (Dec. 16 Bea- con: “Today’s Wilderness Challenge”), I would like to acknowledge with grat- itude the service that he and others like Howard Zahniser, Mardy and Olaus Murie, and Aldo Leopold rendered in establishing the framework of our National Wilderness Preservation Sys- tem. These men and women fought for decades to establish a legacy that ben- e ts all Americans from active users to passive appreciators. Nonetheless, I must o er an alternative perspective to Stewart’s injunction to “resist the fuzzy, fuzzy Neverland of collaboration” when addressing critical wilderness issues.
“ALMOST EVERYONE IN WHITEFISH AGREES THAT CONSERVATION AND PUBLIC RECREATION ARE GOOD FOR LOCALS (AND) THE ECONOMY.”
Mike (Uncommon Ground) Jopek and Dave (Closing Range) Skinner often fall on opposite sides of the fence when it comes to political and outdoor issues. Their columns alternate each week in the Flathead Beacon.
Edward Monnig lives in Missoula
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