In Defense of America's Public Wildlands

 Note: For more info, please visit the Last Best Place Wildlands Campaign. Along with the conservation groups listed below, by signing this petition, you'll be letting the U.S. Senate know that you stand up for wildlands protection, Wilderness preservation, and the sound long-term management of America's public lands legacy.  (scroll down or click "view whole petition" at left)

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United by our common understanding that Montana's wild country is its greatest treasure;

And, that once degraded or impaired, this wild country can never be restored or replaced;

And, cognizant of Thoreau's belief that "In wildness is the preservation of the world;"

And, schooled by Aldo Leopold who long ago warned that wilderness can only shrink and not grow;

And, keenly aware of the definition of wilderness in the Wilderness Act of 1964 as being "untrammeled by man," where "man himself is a visitor who does not remain;"

    And, fully recognizing that the Northern Rockies ecosystem is the only functioning ecosystem in the lower 48 states where all native species still reside;

      And, being of one mind in our desire and determination to protect and preserve what remains of our public wildlands to the greatest extent possible;

We hereby state our intention to work together to achieve the most inclusive and comprehensive protection under the law for all remaining publicly-owned de facto wilderness in Montana.

In full affirmation of the above and, after having been unsuccessful in our earnest efforts to improve Sen. Tester's so-called "Forest Jobs and Recreation Act," or "S. 1470," we must now unanimously oppose this bill.

The bases for our opposition are exhaustively catalogued in separate analyses and papers, but we submit this foundational document to concisely articulate our chief objections.  They are as follows:

1.  The Tester bill specifically eliminates from mandated protection large portions of the late Senator Lee Metcalf's wildlands legacy, Congressionally designated as Wilderness Study Areas in 1977 by his farsighted bill,  S. 393.  By eliminating this protection, the Tester bill opens these priceless public wildlands for road building, logging, and other development.

2.   The Tester bill undermines the overwhelmingly popular Clinton Roadless Rule and Obama Roadless Initiative.  Over one million acres of federally-inventoried roadless wildlands protected under the Roadless Rule and the Roadless Initiative would be classified as "Timber Suitable or Open to Harvest."

3.  The Tester Bill surrenders decisions about our national forests to a handful of local bureaucrats and extraction-oriented corporations, thereby promoting fragmentation of America's national public lands legacy into locally controlled fiefdoms.

4.  The Tester bill undermines the National Environmental Policy Act by imposing unrealistic and arbitrary requirements that preclude the Forest Service from accurately assessing environmental impacts of road building, logging, habitat loss, water degradation, weed infestation, and other costs of developing public wildlands.

5.  The Tester bill mandates unsustainable logging quotas regardless of environmental costs, thereby jeopardizing safeguards provided public lands by the Clean Water Act, Endangered Species Act, National Forest Management Act, Wilderness Act, and Federal Land Policy and Management Act.

6.  In its effort to isolate decisions to log wildlands from national attention, the Tester bill disenfranchises public lands stakeholders, by overriding legitimate science-based forest planning that involves full public information and participation.  It deprives the public of our rights to be included in irreversible decisions concerning our own land.

7.  The Tester bill mandates cutting at least 100,000 acres over 10 years.  It dictates at least 7,000 acres be logged per year for 10 years in the Beaverhead-Deerlodge National Forest.  In recent years, the Forest Service has set its sustainable cut level for the Beaverhead-Deerlodge National Forest at 500 acres per year.  In past years, when the Forest Service was dedicated to "getting the cut out," an average of 3,213 acres per year was logged, from 1954 to 1996, in the Beaverhead-Deerlodge National Forest. On the Three Rivers Ranger District of the Kootenai National Forest, Tester's bill mandates logging of 3,000 acres per year for 10 years in fragile Yaak grizzly bear habitat, already severely damaged by decades of overcutting.  While logging at least 100,000 acres would be compulsory, the Tester bill contains no accompanying mandates for restoration, leaving all post-logging reclamation and forest restoration optional.

8.  The Tester bill fails to address at least $100 million in costs to U.S. taxpayers that would be incurred by the Forest Service for subsidizing "below-cost" timber sales and power plants for the few specially-privileged timber corporations involved.  The bill interferes with free enterprise by mandating that five favored private mills be subsidized with perpetual supplies of national forest trees, at huge economic costs to taxpayers.  The bill ignores the financial realities that the United States currently face:  Economic crises and a lumber "depression," with new home construction down 70 percent and demands for lumber down 55 percent.

9.  By forcing unsustainable industrial-scale logging upon our public lands, the Tester bill would irrevocably harm essential habitat of species that characterize the wild nature of the northern Rockies, such as the gray wolf, bull trout, cutthroat trout (Montana's official state fish), otter, mountain goat, mountain sheep, elk, arctic grayling, northern goshawk, boreal owl, pileated woodpecker, ferruginous hawk, Montana vole, sage thrasher, wild bison, peregrine falcon, bald eagle, pine marten, fisher, lynx, wolverine, and grizzly bear (Montana's official state animal).

10.  The "wilderness" areas in the Tester bill are fragmented and unconnected islands of largely "rocks and ice," with limited biological integrity and no potential for sustaining biodiversity.  The minimal "wilderness" designated in the bill fails to protect different elevation habitats and their dependent species with core areas, buffer zones, and connecting biological corridors.  The bill promotes numerous abuses that are clearly in violation of the 1964 Wilderness Act, including motorized access into and through "wilderness," military aircraft landings in "wilderness," possible "wilderness" logging, and other intrusions that violate the principles of Wilderness.

Due to these severe deficiencies, we intend to see that the Tester bill is not endorsed by Congress.  Instead, we will constructively stand for a scientifically-sound, ecologically-based Wilderness Bill that preserves the greatest amount of our priceless and rapidly-vanishing public roadless wildlands in Montana.

We, the following, are conservation organizations and citizens dedicated to wildlands protection, Wilderness preservation, and the sound long-term management of our federal public lands legacy.  Our coalition includes small-business owners, scientists, educators and teachers, health care practitioners, hikers and backpackers, hunters and anglers, wildlife viewers, outfitters and guides, veterans, retired Forest Service and Bureau of Land Management officials, ranchers and farmers, craftspersons, and community leaders  - all stakeholders committed to America's public wildlands legacy.

Alliance for the Wild Rockies (MT)
Big Wild Advocates (MT)
Buffalo Field Campaign (MT)
Conservation Congress (MT)
Deerlodge Forest Defense Fund (MT)
Friends of the Bitterroot (MT)
Friends of the Rattlesnake (MT)
Friends of the Wild Swan (MT)
Montana Rivers (MT)
Swan View Coalition (MT)
Western Montana Mycological Association (MT)
Western Watersheds Project (MT)
Wilderness Watch (MT)
WildWest Institute (MT)
Yellowstone Buffalo Foundation (MT)
Allegheny Defense Project (PA)
Bark (OR)
Big Wildlife (OR)
Biodiversity Conservation Alliance (WY)
Buckeye Forest Council (OH)
Caney Fork Headwaters Association (TN)
Cascadia Wildlands (OR)
Center for Biological Diversity (AZ)
Center for Sustainable Living (IN)
Citizens for Better Forestry (CA)
Clearwater Biodiversity Project (ID)
Cumberland Countians for Peace & Justice (TN)
Dogwood Alliance (NC)
EcoLaw Massachusetts  (MA)
Ecosystem Advocates (OR)
Environmental Action Committee of West Marin (CA)
Environmental Protection Information Center (CA)
Green Press Initiative (MI)
Friends of Bell Smith Springs (IL)
Friends of the Breitenbush Cascades (OR)
Friends of the Clearwater (ID)
Heartwood (IN)
Hells Canyon Preservation Council (OR)
John Muir Project (CA)
Kentucky Heartwood (CA)
Klamath Forest Alliance (CA)
League of Wilderness Defenders (OR)
Native Forest Council (OR)
Network for Environmental & Economic Responsibility, United Church of Christ (TN)
Protect Arkansas Wilderness! (AR)
Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER) (DC)
RESTORE the North Woods (ME)
Save America's Forests (DC)
Selkirk Conservation Alliance (ID)
Umpqua Watersheds (OR)
Utah Environmental Congress (UT)
Western Lands Project (WA)
WildEarth Guardians (NM)
WildSouth (NC)

(As of December 20, 2009)

For more information, please visit:
http://testerloggingbilltruths.wordpress.com