I believe there are a few folks who might want Mr. Bush to reconsider, and they will likely let him know about it. Jerry Offtrail ----- Original Message ----- From: "Team Tierra Buena" To: "Arizona Geocaching" Sent: Monday, May 05, 2003 8:07 PM Subject: [Az-Geocaching] And Now for Something Completely Different... > The New York Times > May 4, 2003 > Bah, Wilderness! Reopening a Frontier to Development > By TIMOTHY EGAN > > > SEATTLE - More than a century after historians declared an end to the > American Frontier, the Interior Department made a somewhat similar > announcement last month, with no fanfare. On a Friday night, just after > Congress had left for spring break, the government said it would no > longer consider huge swaths of public land to be wilderness. > > The administration declared that it would end reviews of Western > landholdings for new wilderness protection. As long as the lands had > been under consideration for the American wilderness system, they had > temporary protection from development. > > With a single order, the Bush administration removed more than 200 > million acres from further wilderness study, including caribou stamping > ground in Alaska, the red rock canyons and mesas of southern Utah, Case > Mountain with its sequoia forests in California and a wall of > rainbow-colored rock known as Vermillion Basin in Colorado. > > By declaring an end to wild land surveys, the administration ruled out > protection of these areas as formal wilderness - which, by law, are > supposed to be places people can visit but not stay. Now, these areas, > managed by the Bureau of Land Management, could be opened to mining, > drilling, logging or road-building. > > The idea of designating an area as wilderness - wild land left as is, > for its own sake - is an American construct. Artists and writers in the > mid-19th century led the charge for wilderness, with Henry David Thoreau > arguing from his pond-side home in Concord, Mass., that wilderness > sanctuaries were a necessary complement to civilization. > > In setting aside the first wildlife refuge in 1903, on Pelican Island in > Florida, President Theodore Roosevelt protected a patch of America that > is now the smallest of the formally protected lands - a mere five acres. > And since passage of the Wilderness Act of 1964, 106 million acres have > been given the wild lands designation, with more than half of that total > in Alaska. > > Over the years, the Bureau of Land Management, the nation's biggest > landlord, with 262 million acres under its control, has continued to > survey its vast holdings, trying to determine whether more land is > suitable for wilderness. But the Bush administration says wilderness > reviews should have ended 13 years ago, at the close of a study period > mandated by Congress. This interpretation is challenged by > conservationists who plan to appeal the Bush order in court. > > If the Friday night declaration represents the beginning of a broad new > land management policy, the Interior Department has not said so. There > was not even an announcement of the end of the wilderness reviews on the > department's Web site. > > Instead, the change came about in a settlement of a 1996 lawsuit filed > by the State of Utah against the Interior Department over a reinventory > of three million acres conducted by Bruce Babbitt, the interior > secretary at the time. Most of the lawsuit had been dismissed and sat > dormant until the state amended its complaint in March. > > "This does not mean that someday down the road we may still manage some > of these lands as wilderness," said Patricia Lynn Scarlett, an assistant > interior secretary. > > The move follows a consistent pattern in the president's environmental > policy: to change the way the land is managed, without changing the law. > Whether the issue is allowing snowmobiles in Yellowstone National Park > or logging in the Pacific Northwest, the course has been to settle > lawsuits by opponents of wild land protection, opening up the areas to > wide use, without going to Congress to rewrite the rules. > > Oil and gas developers and others point out that the Clinton > administration did the same thing - making broad changes of policy by > administrative order - but on behalf of an environmental constituency. > In their view, wilderness protection amounts to a land grab, putting > potential timber or mining areas off limits. They say citizen groups > were abusing the law by bringing land surveys to the government, which > then managed the land as de facto wilderness. Leaders of some Western > states have long complained that wilderness study essentially eliminates > the chance to gain any economic value from the land, money that is > needed for state coffers. > > To many conservationists, the announcement was more than another > setback. Wilderness, in the oft-quoted line of the writer Wallace > Stegner, is "the geography of hope." To have that geography capped, they > argue, has had the same effect on some outdoor lovers as the fencing of > the public range had on open-country cattle ranchers. "They are trying > to declare, by fiat, that wilderness does not exist," said Heidi > McIntosh of the Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance. > > The interior secretary, Gale A. Norton, said that the policy reflected > the administration's attempt to cooperate with local officials and heed > concerns of industries that rely on public lands' resources. "The > Department of the Interior believes that we should manage these lands in > a way that provides the greatest benefit to the public," Ms. Norton > wrote in a letter to Senator Robert F. Bennett, Republican of Utah. > > In another letter, Ms. Norton said it seemed senseless to consider > declaring any more wilderness areas in Alaska because its elected > officials are against expanding this protection. But critics say that in > California, a majority of elected officials favor more wilderness. And > in New Mexico, Gov. Bill Richardson, a Democrat, has asked the > government to prevent drilling in 1.8 million acres of the Otero Mesa, > an area that has all the qualities of wilderness. > > The New Mexico land is the largest contiguous piece of Chihuahuan Desert > grassland left in North America, Governor Richardson said. It may be > wild, but for now, it can no longer be Wilderness. > > ____________________________________________________________ > Az-Geocaching mailing list listserv@azgeocaching.com > To edit your setting, subscribe or unsubscribe visit: > http://listserv.azgeocaching.com/mailman/listinfo/az-geocaching > > Arizona's Geocaching Resource > http://www.azgeocaching.com