Last Sunday (June 1st) the Nevada Appeal ran an Op-Ed from the Coalition for Public Access’s Mineral County Liason, Sue Silver. In the Op-Ed she lays out her claim as to why other Nevadans need to be aware of both NWP’s and the Nevada Wilderness Coalition’s work throughout the state, which folks may or may not agree with. There were several quotes that I found particularly interesting, but one in particular lines up with something else I read last week on High Country News’ blog about an effort in Colorado to protect an area known as Brown Canyon.
I think both authors are wrestling with the some of the same issues, while arriving at very different conclusions. The two juxtaposed points are laid out below.
From Sue Silver’s Op-Ed:
…Residents of Lyon and Mineral counties had less than three months to either thwart that effort or acquiesce to the “hand out” of other aspects of the land bill offered by OUR elected officials - OUR EMPLOYEES…
This affects all Nevadans and all those who come to our backyards to recreate, hunt or fish. It also happens to those whose livings are tied to the land. It affects the economies of the counties and the state.
Don’t be placated by the argument that the land is remote, therefore it must be wilderness. For over 145 years, Nevada’s lands have been tramped upon, prospected, towns settled, towns deserted and graveyards left behind.
What part of that activity could possibly have left “wilderness,” unaffected by man?
From Ed Quillen of HCN:
There are some good questions as to whether the proposed acreage really meets the definition under the 1964 Wilderness Act as “an area where the earth and its community of life are untrammeled by man,” and “with the imprint of man’s work substantially unnoticeable.” That acreage has those old roads, as well as prospect holes and logging remnants.
But on the other hand, the last time I was up there, the territory “generally appears to have been affected primarily by the forces of nature,” and it offers “outstanding opportunities for solitude or a primitive and unconfined type of recreation.”
In other words, its suitability as a wilderness is judgment call, and we elect people to make those decisions as to whether its natural attributes substantially outweigh the fading marks of human activity.
What do others think?
I think Lowden’s position is purely ideologically motivated. But that doesn’t matter much because her questions need to be addressed in a solid manner. To me, the compromise would be this:
“Tell ya what, Sue. The tri-county area needs to submit its detailed economic development and population growth plan to show us just which of these as you say, so-called ‘wilderness’ areas, need to be developed and which of your open spaces are going to be urbanized and populated in a manner which will be economically sustainable long-term. Because all the examples you cite are developments and practices which were obviously not sustainable. Once we have that information, we’ll leave the areas specifically called out alone. But make no mistake, somebody’s got to replant the trees that the opportunistic prospectors cut down a hundred years ago or more, and this land does support vital populations of wildlife which would benefit from better, more scientific management of the lands. And when you have 25, 100, 200 thousand people living here, you’re going to want to have ready access to the wilderness. You know, kind of what we’re insisting these mountains are, today.”
Now, the burden of proof, the actual research, plans, hopes, dreams and desires of the local residents, that burden of proof is squarely upon the opponents of wilderness area designations.
Lowden’s position today to me is essentially, “humans are supposed to run roughshod over the land, denuding whole landscapes and leaving them behind, and those of us who inherit these damaged landscapes have every right to perpetuate the damage in any way we see fit.” Well, that’s pretty much just not the case. We don’t want to soil our own nests, so, CPAMC, tell us where you’re putting the latrine. Because we have to figure out where the backyard is going to go.
I apologize a million ways from Sunday to Sue Silver for getting her last name wrong in my above comment.
Funny. If you believe the mining commercials a mine could be wilderness after it’s “reclaimed.” Still, there’s no hope of finding untrammeled land in North America. You just have to pretend not to see it.
-M