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Show AAS The Salt Lake Tribune OPINION Sunday, January 24, 1999 Wilderness Designation Only Restricts Access to Public Lands BY RAINER HUCK their members at public expense. The losers will be just about every- It seemsthat every time wepick up a body else: families, hunters, fisherman, newspaper these days, we find a story Tock hounds,vehicle-assisted recreationists, i and handi- P iming theplightof the endang: Western public lands and the courageous battle waged byselfless visionaries to save them from destruction. ‘These stories appear with such regularity that most people, not being famil- capped persons, and the aged — in short, just about anyone whoneeds or desires the use of vehicles to access the recre- ational backcountry. Whenan areais designated wilderness by Congress, all existing roads are closed iar with these issues, have come to regard them as reality rather than as clever and expertly packaged myths. forever. No people on vehicles are al- lowed underany circumstances. This in- This is not a desperate battle to save exquisitely beautiful public lands from cludes snowmobiles andbicycles. lucrative effort to shift managementand organizations doing theshifting. Asin any battle, there will be winners malls or condos. Commercialactivities on public lands are already sostrictly regulated that they are rapidly being driven out. The real issue is roads and access. The 22 million acres of Bureau of rich themselves, but in the process create vast preserves of scenic recreational lands managed for the exclusive use of Land Management public land in Utah have become thetarget du jour for the land-gobbling wilderness machine. Variousactivities over the past several generations have developed a road-and-trail but rather a ‘The wilderness issueis not aboutstrip mining, cl iting, and the building of well-funded control from thelocallevel to Washington, D.C., while at the sametimeraising millions of dollars for the benefit of the andlosers. In this case the winnerswill be the special interests whonotonly en- network that allows people to enjoy ve- hicular access to some of the most incredible and scenic desert and canyon landscapes to be found anywherein the world. Thanks to these roads, our stunning red-rock canyons and spectacular vistas are available for all to visit and straight face they proclaim that“we can always build morestrip malls. We can’t build more wilderness.” These claims are repeated so often that people come to regard them asfactual, when,in reality, just the opposite is true. The work being doneby the wilderness experience on a regularbasis. activists themselves supports this proposition. The BLM spent 10 years and $10 gobbling up landsin other parts of the country, we in Utah thought our roads million preparing an inventory of lands meeting the criteria for wilderness designation, resulting in a recommendation While the wilderness machine was weresafe from confiscation becausethe When we strip away the rhetoric. greed, elitism, and nonsense, it is clear that the underlying goal is a shift of management authority from the local level to Washington, where thepolicies will be controlled by rich and powerful special interest groups who want to impose their managementphilosophies by force. This will cost the taxpayers billions of dollars, makethe land less productive, and will discriminate against the vast majority of currentand potential users. There are no grave crises, nothing about to be lost throughinaction. In 50 years or 100 years, these lands will look exactly as they do now, whether they are designated as wilderness or made into another national monument or park Wilderness Act of 1964 requires that candidate lands be roadless, pristine, and free of the imprintof the activities of 1.9 million acres. About the same But the wilderness lobby was notabout to let such minordetails stand in the way of their plans. They simplytell us that our roads are not roads at all, but merely “ways” andthus canbestricken from the map.In this way (not to be confused with “way”’), new potential wilderness can be created just about anywhere. designated. After a few years had passed, they foundthat 5.7 million acres ingactivities. This trend would suggest the treasure ofthe elite few orofall of our people The wilderness lobby loves to tell us about how manyacresof wilderness are thatthe best process for creating wildernesslandsis not to designate them,since being lost forever each day. With a the longer we wait, the larger they grow! Shared Access Alliance. of man. time, the activists, wanting maximum However,if the special interests prevail, wilderness rather than real wilderness, decided that 5.1 million acres should be millions of people will be denied the op- portunity to see and experience these special places. The public lands of Utah are a trea- qualified. More recently, they have found 9 million acres. sure, indeed. Of this there can be no ar- It seems strange that they can keep finding more new wilderness even after many years of supposed wilderness-bust- just whosetreasure these lands shallbe: gument.Thecurrentdebate centers over tainer Huck is president of the Utah Babbitt Can’t Cite Real Successes of Endangered Species Act BY RICHARD POMBO FOR KNIGHT-RIDDER/TRIBUNE TRACY, Calif. — With apologies to Lewis Carroll, author of “Alice in Wonderland,” I will now lead you through a modern-day fairy tale about the Endangered Species Act, which has just completed its 25th year. It begins like thi is: “Babbitt announcesnew policy, plansto ‘delist’ endangered species,” proclaimed a Department Service,a division of Babbitt’s Interior Department, has acknowledgedthis, and agreed to propose delisting. The peregrine falcon’s recovery wasinitially hindered by bureaucratic bungling at the USFWS.In an Aug. 25, 1998, an- nouncement delisting the falcon, the service heaped praise on itself, claiming that its “recovery program is unprecedented in the world andin the history of endangered species conservation.” This of Interior press release on May6, 1998, “In the near future, many is a farce. species will be flying, splashing cide DDTin 1972, the falcon’ssit- and leaping off the list. They made it. They are graduating. They're coming back to their na- uation improved. tive American soil, water and wind,” claimed Bruce “The Mad Hatter” Babbitt. Tell that to the Mariana mallard, one of the“success stories” proposed for delisting. It will not be flying, splashing or leaping anytime soon. That's because it is extinct! Ditto for the Guam broadbill and three species of the Oahu tree snail. They haveall “graduated’ off the endangered species list, and into extinction. Andthe ESAfairy tale onlygets “curiouser and curiouser,” as Al- ice would say as she wandered through Wonderland.Manyother species proposed for removal from thelist are not success stories either. Several, such as the Truckee barberry, are being delisted as a After elimination of the pestiRecovery was enhanced by breeding while in captivity, and then controlled release of birds into the wild. Cap- tive b reeding is discouraged under the ESA,andfor several years USFWSdiscredited this method ofsavi ring the falcon. Congressfinally stepped in and demanded that USFWS cooper- ate with the private-sector foun- dations that deservethe credit for recoveringthe falcon The bald eagle, our national symbol, is another example of claiming credit wherenoneis due. Oncenearly extinct, the eagle has recovered dramatically since the elimination of DDT in 1972, and also recovered due to prohibitions that were placed on hunting. In addition, legislation specific to the bald eagle alreadyprotects it, regardless of the ESA. The May6 “success story” an- result of taxonomic error. This nounc ement was held neara bald meansthat it was initially identified as a uniquespecies, different than any other plant, when actually it is not unique, and should eagle nesting site in western Mas- place. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife ~ have not beenlisted in the first sachusetts. It claimed to show how government enforcement of the ESA is saving our national symbol. Actually, it served as a prime example of non-ESA factors leading to recovery of a species. The nest location is not a USFWS and false claims. Perhaps the Eaglet in Wonderlandsaid it best when he told the Dodo bird, “Speak English! I don’t know the meaning of half of those long words, and, what's more, I don’t wildlife refuge or a governmentowned wilderness. It is on private property owned bya utility company, adjacent to a privately operated campground and canoe believe you either!” rental recreation area! Resources Committee and chairman ofits task force on endan- Overall, of the 34 species the Mad Hatter claimed as “proof gered species. He is sponsoring legislation to reform the act. that the act works,” five are ex- Rep. Richard Pombo, R-Calif., is a senior member of the House tinct, 12 listings were based on in- accurate information, and three other species recovered because of the ban on DDT. The rest improved because of actions initiated before the ESA waslaw or becauseof actions tak- en independently of the ESA by state and local government, private property owners and private foundations, for example. I appreciate the department cleaning up the endangered and threatened species list. It is understandable that after 25 years and 1,138 listed species, there will be a few mistakes. 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