Designating Wilderness is Not Protecting It as We Know It

I would like to comment on the letter Supporting Blackfoot-Clearwater Stewardship Project authored by representatives of the Montana Association of Christians (MAC) in the Great Falls Tribune (July 25, 2016). I agree wholeheartedly with collaboration supporting forest restoration and recreation. However, I think there is a widespread misconception that we protect areas as we know them by adding them to the wilderness system.

MAC supports adding 83,000 acres to the Wilderness Complex. They allude to the “Rivers running clear and deep” through conserved areas. I suggest the opposite is true.

While Forest Service policy is that “fire should play a natural role in wilderness,” present implementation is to ENCOURAGE fire to burn in wilderness. The Forest Service preference is to NOT suppress fires in wilderness.

When I asked a ranger whether we could protect special areas in the wilderness his reply was that we have no requirement to protect riparian areas or outfitter and guide campsites from fire. When I complained to a Fire Management Officer about the severity and large scale of the burns in 2007 in and around the wilderness, his answer was that he wanted fires to burn more and burn hotter.

The result of this “Scorched Earth” policy is nuked riparian areas and large landscapes of treeless wilderness. This is not what we picture as “A River Runs Through It.” The rivers do not run clear and deep after a burn but are hot and choked with sediment which even runs as far as Gibson Reservoir.

The latest plan is for fires to be “self-limiting “ in the wilderness, that is, we allow so much to burn and repeatedly burn, that a new fire could not get away. Imagine what the wilderness would look like if we manage everything to burn so any new burn would be naturally contained. This would be a moonscape and is an unrealistic goal in the face of climate change where burns easily blow through other burns.

If we want to be responsible stewards for future generations, like the MAC suggests, we would insist on protection from devastation of our valuable forest resource not only in non-wilderness but in wilderness as well. I suggest we can best contribute to the protection of Montana’s environment by commenting on the forest plan revisions about wildfires “Managed for Resource Benefit” as well as bringing this obsession with burning to the attention of our congressional delegation. What you see is not what you will get in future wilderness.

 

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