For solitude and inspiration,
we seek out wilderness on our public lands, where the road ends and
the trail begins, where, by law, we leave our mechanized
contrivances and walk, float or ride in on horseback. Wilderness, a
gift of nature, remains today because of laws, and where protective
laws don’t yet exist, the values of wilderness are as
impermanent as spring snow.
To protect wilderness,
Congress has to act together, in bipartisan majority, to pass a
law. This is a major task anytime, but more so in these polarized
times. Before a wilderness bill succeeds in Congress, majority
support must also be gained in the home state, community by
community, for deeply rooted legislative tradition requires support
of the home state’s congressional delegation before a bill
can move forward.
This is not to suggest that wilderness
politics are simple, and in 20 years of advocacy in Idaho,
I’ve learned how hard it is to build majority support for
wilderness. Wilderness politics are so challenging and difficult in
Idaho, in fact, that no new law has passed Congress in over 25
years.
Remarkably, a wilderness bill now before Congress
has gained support from 60 percent of the Idaho public, including a
majority of Democrats, Independents and Republicans in this very
Republican state.
The bill was written by Rep. Mike
Simpson, R-Idaho, and by any definition it is a compromise, a
delicate balance among competing interests and traditional
antagonists. The bill protects an Idaho crown jewel, the Boulder
and White Cloud Mountains, by designating over 300,000 acres as
wilderness. To help rural communities with little private land, a
total of 2,000 acres of federal is proposed for transfer to two
counties and four towns. The bill also provides a means of removing
grazing from the proposed wilderness, and it protects designated
trails outside the wilderness for motorized recreation.
The bill has detractors, to be sure, yet in addition to majority
support from Idaho’s public, it has the bipartisan support of
former Idaho leaders, such as Gov. Cecil Andrus and Sen. James
McClure, as well as Bethine Church, wife of the late wilderness
champion, Sen. Frank Church.
As I write this, I’m
preparing to testify before a House subcommittee in support of the
bill. While I have serious reservations about some provisions, I
also know the Boulder-White Clouds very well, from iconic Castle
Peak to the headwaters of four rivers. I know of the extraordinary
wildlife here, from the high-peak mountain goats to the
valley-bottom salmon — fish that are severely threatened and yet
survive here, nearly 900 miles from the Pacific Ocean. I believe
the new Boulder-White Clouds Wilderness would be great for this
land, and passing this bill would be good for Idaho and the future
of common-sense conservation.
Many of my environmental
colleagues are deeply concerned about the trade-offs Rep. Simpson
has judged necessary to get local support for wilderness. I, too,
have concerns about this legislation, such as the gift of some
parcels of public land to Custer County, and the permanent
protection to motors of certain trails outside the wilderness. But
my dislike for these provisions is outweighed by my concern about
our failure to pass a wilderness bill for Idaho in over 25 years,
and the growing divide between conservationists and people in our
rural communities. Each year that we fail to act to preserve the
land, the damage from motorized intrusions increases.
Rep. Simpson and I don’t agree on a lot, but we do agree that
this is the best shot we’ve ever had to protect a special
part of Idaho, and that doing it this way provides something for
each group at the table.
Mike Simpson has helped me
— a lifelong wilderness advocate — learn to stop
talking and start listening, to pause and realize that the
differences between many of us are not that great. We all love the
land, even if some of us want to use it in different ways. When it
comes to appreciating an Idaho sunset or the charge that comes from
a cutthroat trout on the line, there really isn’t much
difference between Republicans and Democrats.
I’m
going to Washington, D.C., this week to speak in support of a
wilderness bill I never would have written myself. But working with
Idaho residents on this bill over the years has taught me about the
folly of absolutism and the wisdom of cooperation. I’ve also
come to understand the hunger people have for government that
actually gets something done.
Rick Johnson is a
contributor to Writers on the Range, a service of High
Country News (hcn.org). He is executive director of the
Idaho Conservation League, based in
Boise.
Republish our articles for free, online or in print, under a Creative Commons license.
