Sorry if this has been diaried before - but
this story (via user
strands of pearl) is the biggest of the year for us Westerners.
WASHINGTON - The last 58.5 million acres of untouched national forests, which President Clinton had set aside for protection, were opened to possible logging, mining and other commercial uses by the Bush administration on Thursday.
New rules from the U.S. Forest Service cover some of the most pristine federal land in 38 states and Puerto Rico. Ninety-seven percent of it is in 12 states: Alaska, Arizona, California, Colorado, Idaho, Montana, Nevada, New Mexico, Oregon, Utah, Washington and Wyoming.
Time for a little history lesson: way back in 2000, when President Clinton learned that Al Gore wouldn't be his successor, he finally listened to his interior secretary, former Arizona Governor and noted environmentalist
Bruce Babbitt, and declared by executive order 58.5 million acres of untouched and previously unprotected land National Wilderness Area.
Never heard of the National Wilderness Area designation? The idea was invented by Congress during the Johnson administration. Environmentalists were worried by the fact that supposedly protected lands which were home to rare species of plants and animals were receiving too much human traffic. This wasn't about logging or hunting, because some of the lands that eventually became National Wilderness Areas were already National Parks. But there were some areas that simply couldn't hold up to human contact at all -- and the Johnson administration believed that it was more important to protect these areas than to allow human access.
So Congress passed the 1964 National Wilderness Act, whose purpose was as follows:
In order to assure that an increasing population, accompanied by expanding settlement and growing mechanization, does not occupy and modify all areas...leaving no lands designated for preservation and protection in their natural condition...to secure for the American people of present and future generations the benefits of an enduring resource of wilderness...these shall be administered for the use and enjoyment of the American people in such manner as will leave them unimpaired for future use and enjoyment as wilderness...
Following this far-reaching mission, the act states:
A wilderness, in contrast with those areas where man and his works dominate the landscape, is hereby recognized as an area where the earth and its community of life are untrammeled by man, where man himself is a visitor who does not remain. An area of wilderness is further defined to mean in this Act an area of undeveloped Federal land retaining its primeval character and influence, without permanent improvements or human habitation, which is protected and managed so as to preserve its natural conditions and which (1) generally appears to have been affected primarily by the forces of nature, with the imprint of man's work substantially unnoticeable; (2) has outstanding opportunities for solitude or a primitive and unconfined type of recreation; (3) has at least five thousand acres of land or is of sufficient size as to make practicable its preservation and use in an unimpaired condition; and (4) may also contain ecological, geological, or other features of scientific, educational, scenic, or historical value.
A Federal website continues:
Federal lands administered by the U.S. Forest Service, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, and the Bureau of Land Management have also been designated as wilderness. While National Park Service lands were already protected from many forms of development and commercial use, wilderness designation goes one step further and prohibits the roads, motorized vehicles, and man-made structures which are commonly provided to facilitate visitor enjoyment in National Parks.
In other words, here's what you need to know about the areas Bush just opened up to logging. These are areas that are more sensitive even than National Parks -- more in need of protection from human contact, and CERTAINLY from logging and mining operations.
Back in 2000, this was a hot-button issue. A bunch of Western Republican governors and congressmen signed petitions to President Bush asking him to revoke Clinton's executive orders. But Bush wouldn't risk the wrath of environmentalists -- so he waited until six months after he was reelected to a second term to sneak under the radar the most environmentally destructive bill since the Hoover administration.
Ag Undersecretary Mark Rey seems to think this isn't a big deal:
He emphasized that the rule probably would not lead to a big spurt of road building. "We've only been constructing a few miles of road each year," he said.
Bullshit. Bull effin shit. A few miles of road a year will eff these places up. Dammit, you can't even ENTER these places with a car without damaging them. You think road-building, mining and logging won't hurt 'em? Think again, buster.
Our President has just sold our children's wilderness to the logging and mining companies. And I'm effin pissed.
