Winter 2005. Election notes. Winning for wilderness in the High Sierra. Forrest Fleischman joins FSEEE.
Finding Common Ground
November 3. My assignment: to forecast the consequences of this election for our national forests. But I’d rather tell you about my local school district, CrowĞApplegateĞLorane, where we passed a local options tax levy that assures we won’t lay off 10 percent of the district’s twenty-six teachers. I made more than 300 phone calls to district voters asking them to support public education. And they did, overwhelmingly, 736 to 443. Five years ago the levy lost by eleven votes. It feels good, like I made a small difference in our rural Oregon community.
I know a majority of my 1,179 school district neighbors voted Bush into the White House for four more years. I know a majority rejected protecting half of the state’s forest lands from logging and jettisoned Oregon’s first-in-the-nation land-use planning laws. But I didn’t talk to my neighbors about Bush, forests or land-use planning. I talked about schools and kids. By engaging, one-on-one, we did something good for the future. And we did it without regard for the labels of Democrat, Republican, Green or Independent.
Regardless of party, as I talked with my neighbors, we found common ground in the value of public education. For our school district, as it was for the nation as a whole, this election was about values.
That’s what it’s going to take to protect our national forests. One by one, we who care about forests must engage our friends and neighbors about the values of national forests. National forests are about a middle-school class going on an overnight trip to an old-growth forest. National forests are about a grandfather taking his granddaughter for a day of fishing in a trout stream. National forests are about a family escaping from television and video games for a day of skiing in the mountains.
National forests are about families having fun together, kids learning wilderness skills and the feeling of accomplishment and self-reliance that comes from them. National forests are about reflection as well as recreation. They are a place to escape from being consumers to simply being. National forests are for everyone.
Protecting our national forests will not succeed if we rely only on the tools of media campaigns, lawsuits and demonstrations. Like phone calls and letters to Congress, these tactics are often necessary, but never sufficient. If we want wilderness, fish, wildlife and old-growth forests protected for our children and grandchildren to enjoy, it will take politics practiced at the local level. It will take engaging real people in the values of national forests. —Andy Stahl
FSEEE Wins Case for Wilderness
On August 25, a federal panel of three judges ruled unanimously that the U.S. Forest Service violated the Wilderness Act in its management of an 800,000-acre expanse of wilderness in California’s High Sierra. The Wilderness Act states plainly that wilderness areas shall be administered “in such a manner as will leave them unimpaired for future use and enjoyment as wilderness, and so as to provide for the protection of these areas, and the preservation of their wilderness character.”
Despite this statutory language, the Forest Service maintained that the extreme popularity of the John Muir and Ansel Adams Wildernesses necessitated a “balancing” between protection of wilderness values on the one hand, and the public demand for primitive types of recreation on the other. Forest Service Employees for Environmental Ethics, Wilderness Watch and the High Sierra Hikers Association successfully argued before the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals that the Wilderness Act requires no such balancing. While recreation is an important use of wilderness, it must not be allowed at levels that degrade an area’s wilderness character.
The Ninth Circuit panel agreed, citing two places in the Wilderness Act where the agency’s stated responsibility is the preservation of wilderness character. A U.S. District Court judge had previously decided that the Forest Service had broad discretion in determining how much recreational use to allow under the Wilderness Act, but the Ninth Circuit’s decision overturns that ruling. The panel went on, “The Forest Service’s decision to grant permits [for seventeen commercial pack stations] at their pre-existing levels in the face of documented damage resulting from overuse does not have rational validity.”
“It’s a win-win for wilderness and those who love the High Sierra,” says Gary Guenther, a former Forest Service ranger in the John Muir Wilderness. “This ruling sends a clear message to the Forest Service that while commercial operations are appropriate, they must be done in a way that safeguards the wilderness.” Guenther left the Forest Service several years ago, frustrated by the agency’s failure to act when he reported problems with pack station operations. In 1999, he sought FSEEE’s help.
This led to the filing of a lawsuit in April 2000. At issue in the case was whether the Forest Service had taken the necessary steps to regulate commercial pack stations in fulfillment of the agency’s obligations under the Wilderness Act, the National Environmental Policy Act and the National Forest Management Act.
FSEEE teamed up with Wilderness Watch and the High Sierra Hikers Association to bring forth documents prepared by the Forest Service’s own wilderness rangers and resource specialists. The documents described extensive damage and impacts to meadows, stream banks, campsites, trails and wildlife.
In 2001, the U.S. District Court ruled that the Forest Service had violated the National Environmental Policy Act by not assessing the environmental impacts of commercial operations prior to issuing special-use permits for the individual pack stations. The District Court ordered the Forest Service to prepare an environmental impact statement by the end of 2005 analyzing the cumulative effects of the seventeen commercial pack stock operations.
The Ninth Circuit’s ruling comes at an important time because it should force the Forest Service to rethink its approach to the environmental impact statement. Two months before the ruling, the agency publicly launched the assessment process with a proposal that, if implemented, would allow commercial pack outfitters to lead even more trips into the wilderness. The Ninth Circuit ruling should stop this proposal in its tracks. The panel stated that the agency’s logical next step should be “to actually protect those [wilderness] areas by lowering the allowed usage” rather than allowing commercial usage to increase.
The Ninth Circuit ruling also remands the case back to the lower court for consideration of additional relief. It may be that the Forest Service will be required to take specific remedial action to restore portions of the wilderness that have been allowed to degrade as a result of the agency’s failure to regulate and limit recreational uses at appropriate levels.
FSEEE will continue to work with its attorneys to ensure that we obtain both appropriate relief from the District Court and an environmental impact statement decision that truly protects and preserves the High Sierra’s wilderness character for future generations.
If you wish to provide the Forest Service with comments, contact the team leader at mhennessy@fs.fed.us and ask to be placed on the mailing list for the Cumulative Effects Analysis statement.
To read the Ninth Circuit ruling, go to www.ca9.uscourts.gov/newopinions.nsf. Under Opinions by Date, go to August 2004, then click on High Sierra Hikers v. Blackwell. (NOTE: As of March 7, 2005, this link is no longer available.) —Bob Dale
Welcome, Forrest!
Forrest Fleischman joined Forest Service Employees for Environmental Ethics on November 1 as the FSEEE Advocate. Forrest has a dual B.S. and M.S. in earth systems from Stanford University with an emphasis in forest policy. Forrest will assist FSEEE with several programs, including supervision and monitoring of use on our national forests, grassroots environmental activism, sustainable forestry, species protection and restoration projects. Prior to joining FSEEE, Forrest worked in organic agriculture and sustainable woodlot management for an educational farm on the coast of Maine.