Fundamental Sustainability—Protecting the Wilderness that Sustains Us
On January 15, 2009, the U.S. Senate passed the Omnibus Public Land Management Act of 2009 (S.22). This legislation will designate approximately two million of acres of land as components of the National Wilderness Preservation System, which confers the government's highest level of protection on land, in addition to making amendments to a variety of other public laws. The fate of the legislation, which is actually a collection of about 160 bills more than a decade in the making, now rests with the U.S. House of Representatives where a vote was expected in the first half of February (and which was presumably delayed by the federal stimulus package).
Oregonians have a stake in this legislation because it contains the following seven land bills:
(1) The Lewis and Clark Mount Hood Wilderness Act of 2007— Preserves almost 127,000 acres of national forest on Mt. Hood and adds nearly 80 miles of Oregon rivers to the National Wild and Scenic River System;
(2) The Copper Salmon Wilderness Act—Designates 9.3 miles of rivers as Wild and Scenic and designates as wilderness over 13,000 acres of old growth and cedar forests in central Oregon;
(3) The Oregon Badlands Wilderness Act of 2008—Designates as wilderness almost 30,000 acres of high desert east of Bend;
(4) Cascade-Siskiyou National Monument Voluntary and Equitable Grazing Conflict Resolution Act—Authorizes the permanent retirement of grazing allotments within the monument and establishes a 23,000-acre wilderness area to be known as the Soda Mountain Wilderness;
(5) Spring Basin Wilderness Act—Designates as wilderness approximately 8,600 acres of BLM land in the watershed of the John Day Wild and Scenic River;
(6) Fisheries Restoration and Irrigation Mitigation Act of 2008—Extends a highly successful federal program that splits the cost of constructing fish screens and other measures that protect salmon and other endangered fish species in the Columbia River Basin between the Federal Government and irrigation districts until the year 2015;
(7) Watershed Restoration and Enhancement Agreements Act of 2007—Gives the Secretary of Agriculture permanent authority to use Forest Service funding to work with government, private, and nonprofit entities to protect, restore, and enhance fish and wildlife habitat.
These days when talk of sustainability is pervasive in all aspects of daily life (I mean, who ever heard of sustainable mascara or organic cat litter five years ago?), this legislation is a chance for us all to put our money where our mouth is and sustain that which cannot be recreated—wilderness—the basic ingredient, an elemental component of our country unchanged by humans. No one talked about wilderness as well as Aldo Leopold, who was instrumental in forming the nation's first wilderness area—the Gila Mountains. I believe that Mr. Leopold would be immensely pleased with this legislation, and if it passes, the nation should be proud of its achievement.
"Our remnants of wilderness will yield bigger values to the nation's character and health than they will to its pocketbook, and to destroy them will be to admit that the latter are the only values that interest us." --Aldo Leopold, 1925
Post authored by Jeanette C. Schuster, attorney practicing in the Sustainability and Real Estate and Land Use Groups.
