Volume 15, Number 3
Fall 2003

Quietly, outside the normal public participation process, a small group of well-paid "professional" conservationists have been busy formulating local deals that effectively undercut the integrity of wilderness ecosystems in the Northern Rockies. This regression to provincial thinking and processes of the past incorporates several new land-grab techniques which attempt to "buy" marginal wilderness protection for non-threatened roadless lands in exchange for other valuable public assets ­ land, habitat, trees, water rights, pretty much anything goes.

A lose-lose proposition for public lands and citizens, disposing of federal public asset value as a quid pro quo for congressionally designated mini-wilderness adds a new wrinkle to the old problem of "hard release." Not surprisingly, some of the same "Quisling conservationists" that sold out Wyoming, Oregon and Washington wilderness in the 1980's have resurfaced, and are repackaging old-fashioned "rocks and ice" wilderness into new and improved virtual wilderness, "rocks and air."

Following three years of smaller pilot projects in Nevada and Oregon, the lets-make-a-deal club has moved its operations to Idaho, where the Nature Conservancy and Idaho Conservation League are stumbling headlong down a similar wrong path ­ "buying" marginal wilderness protection in uncontested portions of Idaho's roadless backcountry. What's at stake: the ecological integrity of the Owyhee canyonlands and Boulder White Clouds.

NREPA SUPPLANTS STATE DELEGATION PROCESS

Throughout the 1980's and into the 1990's, grassroots wilderness advocates in Montana, Idaho, Oregon, Washington and Wyoming learned political lessons the hard way, eventually beating back a profusion of wilderness-sacrifice legislation. Millions of acres of de facto wilderness were condemned to industrial development with the passage of "omnibus bills" for Wyoming, Oregon and Washington. Most state-by-state bills denied wilderness water rights and included "hard release" language that mandated (denied citizens meaningful public participation and judicial review) subsidized development for over 80% of the roadless lands that qualified for congressional wilderness designation. In Montana for example, the fraction of wilderness protection proposed by Montana delegation members ranged from a low of 620,000 acres (Sen. Burns, 1990) to an all-time high of 1.4 million acres (Rep. Williams, 1994) out of a possible 6.5 million de facto wilderness acres. In Idaho and Montana, statewide omnibus bills never became law.

In 1992, Rep. Peter Kostmayer (D-PA) introduced the first multi-state, ecosystem-based legislation ever considered by the U.S. Congress. Rep. Kostmayer's bill, the 20-million acre Northern Rockies Ecosystem Protection Act (NREPA), established a bioregional, bipartisan strategy for protecting entire wilderness ecosystems and connecting corridors.

NREPA's introduction began a new era for wilderness, wildlife and watersheds, and a new strategy to overcome the controlling influence of ultra-conservative, big national groups in Washington D.C. and the state-by-state delegation consensus process. By the mid-1990's, the failed state delegation process had been defeated in the Wild Rockies bioregion.

DEALING AWAY BOULDER WHITE CLOUDS

The Nature Conservancy and Idaho Conservation League (ICL) continue to negotiate the proposed transfer of thousands of acres of public land, including portions of Idaho's Sawtooth National Recreation Area, to Custer County, Idaho. If approved by Congress, the county plans to sell-off the land to finance economic development. In exchange, Custer County Commissioners are expected to support wilderness designation for a portion of the Boulder-White Cloud area near Sun Valley.

Custer County wants to sell the land to add private acreage to its property tax rolls, which could in turn be used to stimulate economic development, fund education and habitat improvement projects for ranchers who's operations currently fail to comply with the provisions of the Endangered Species Act. The truth is that Federal Payment in Lieu of Taxes (PILT) typically generates more long-term cash for counties, without the hoopla.

No more than 250,000 acres of the Boulder White Clouds would get wilderness protection, although for decades conservationists have fought shoulder to shoulder to designate over 500,000 acres. One bill, NREPA, protects the entire roadless area. To make matters worse, the proposed Boulder White Clouds Wilderness will have no water rights, even though it is headwaters source for four major rivers. Idaho Conservation League and the Conservancy have neither objected publicly, nor demanded a NEPA process.

When considering all the costs and benefits, the Custer County/Boulder White Clouds deal stinks, setting in motion a bad precedent that undermines the public's right to a meaningful participation process, and the continuous ongoing effort to pass NREPA, the present and future of wilderness ecosystem legislation.

BAD TRANSACTION IN THE OWYHEE CANYONLANDS

ICL, Sierra Club and Wilderness Society are involved in another deal too bad to be true, dubbed the Owyhee Initiative. This largely funder-driven deal-in-the-making is little more than a political feel-good process that in the end codifies the status quo, providing little long-term protection for public lands and important wildlife habitat. Featuring a big media pitch and undisclosed concessions to welfare ranchers, it "protects" cliff faces ("rocks and air") in the Owyhee canyonlands in exchange for guarantees to ranchers that they can graze cows in high quality sage grouse habitat virtually free from environmental review. No Legislative EIS has been conducted, and none is planned.

WHAT TO DO ABOUT IT

This is no time to panic. Somehow, these bad deals must be killed in Congress.

Regional strategies rooted in the principles of conservation biology, sustainable economic models and vigorous local and regional ecosystem defense campaigns, have proven to be most effective in stopping road-building, mining, oil and gas development and clear-cut logging practices. Grassroots groups and members of Congress must continue to actively work to protect public land, watersheds and wildlife in the region. NREPA is gaining new sponsors at an all-time record pace ­ 155 and counting.

Write or call your congressmen today. Ask them to co-sponsor NREPA and oppose passage of these embarrassing attempts to turn national wilderness decisions over to state politics. The Northern Rockies region still has the worst environmental voting record in Congress.