Posted on 01/19/2008 1:13:31 AM PST by JohnHuang2
Bumper stickers that read "No Moo in '92," and "Cattle Free by '93" signaled the open warfare between Western ranchers and environmental groups in the last decade. The war is still raging. Groups such as the New Mexico Wilderness Alliance, the Wilderness Society, the Sierra Club and others set out years ago to free the West of cattle, sheep and the ranchers responsible for them.
A favorite tool used by these well-funded organizations is the Wilderness Act of 1964. This law was enacted originally to preserve 9 million acres of wilderness so "future generations could see what their forefathers had to conquer." Now, there are 702 officially designated Wilderness Areas, covering 107.4 million acres. Every year environmental groups propose and lobby Congress to designate even more areas as "wilderness." There are 38 such bills in the current Congress.
"Wilderness" designation is a legal term that prohibits the use of motorized vehicles in the area. There can be no commercial enterprise in a "wilderness" area. There can be no roads nor permanent structures. Motorized equipment or mechanized transport is prohibited. "Wilderness" means land "untrammeled by humans."
The New Mexico Wilderness Alliance, or NMWA, led a campaign to designate an additional 422,138 acres in Dona Ana County, N.M., as "wilderness," and another 108,000 acres as a national conservation area. The federal government owns 34.1 percent of New Mexico, of which, 1.6 million acres is already designated as "wilderness."
(Excerpt) Read more at worldnetdaily.com ...
Over population rearing its ugly head. It will get worse the more of us there are. I’m sure many disagree, but let me try to walk coast to coast with a .22 rifle and see how far I get. There is no freedom left in this country. Better than others, but unless you like LOTS of people + taxes, there is no habitable place left to go.
If given all the facts, most people would support neither the rancher’s position nor the enviro’s position.
[If given all the facts, most people would support neither the rancher’s position nor the enviro’s position.]
I don’t think that is true. If given all the facts, the majority of the not thinking people would see who the enviormentalists are and support the ranchers who grow the cattle that we ear in resteraunts and at home.
Most enviormentalists are marxist communists vegetarians who insist that all eat vege only and that is enough for me to despise them, not to mention every greenie I ever knew as a liberal communist.
I must say, roughing it was the greatest and although the idea behind all this is to preserve it for future generations to see what their forefathers found when they arrived there is kind of foolish because there will only be a handfull of people ever see what is there. I'm sure not many will get back in the Gila Wilderness.
This was from my weekly column against Boxer’s proposed Wilderness bill for my county. It was before the additional large wildfires of this year in Happy Camp and outside of Yreka.
Senator Barbara Boxer recently re-introduced S. 493 - the California Wild Heritage Act of 2007. It has been referred to the Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources. A companion bill H.R. 860 has been introduced in the House of Representatives by Rep. Hilda Solis. The bill would take “regular” Klamath National Forest and Rogue River -Siskiyou National Forest land and designate it as additional Wilderness land. Siskiyou County is only one of the areas in California that this bill would impact.
S. 493 proposes: 64,160 acres of additional Marble Mountain Wilderness; 19,360 acres of additional Russian Wilderness; and 51,600 acres of additional Red Butte Wilderness in Siskiyou County. The proposed Marble Mountain addition would extend Wilderness right up to private lands in some areas of Quartz Valley, Greenview, Etna and French Creek, (targets Mill Creek, Snoozer Ridge, Whisky Butte, Etna Mountain.) The proposed Russian Wilderness additions would include lands near Wildcat Peak, Grizzly Peak, Hogan Creek and on either side of the South Fork of the Salmon River. The proposed Red Butte Kangaroo Wilderness Unit extends from Pyramid Peak at the Oregon border down to private lands along the Klamath River west of Fort Goff and eastward along the Klamath through Seiad Valley. It also includes the Cook and Green Creek area and White and Condrey Mountain areas. Maps can be found at http://www.calwild.org/campaigns/cwhc_act/cwhc_list.php
Currently, the Marble Mountain Wilderness is 223,500 acres; the Russian Wilderness - 12,700; the Siskiyou - 70,100; the Trinity Alps - 74,900; Red Butte 20,235, and the Mt. Shasta Wilderness – 38,200 acres. That is about 439,635 acres of current Wilderness in Siskiyou County and, because there are so many National Forests in the County that span other counties, I am sure that is not all of it. The bill proposes to lock up another 135,120 acres. On the Klamath National Forest, this would mean that approximately 31% of its land would be in Wilderness designation.
The following activities are prohibited in a Wilderness: road building; use of motorized equipment; use of mechanical vehicles; timber harvest; new mining claims; new grazing allotments; building of facilities, dams or water structures. Search and rescue and firefighting activities are allowed.
The greatest concern with this bill is that fuel reduction management activities – tree thinning, brushing and crushing, would not be allowed in new Wilderness. The bill would bring unmanaged lands right up against private lands, eliminating any manageable buffer in the Wildland Urban Interface. It would also remove these lands from productive commercial use that could benefit severely depressed local economies.
It is amazing to me that the federal government could list the following communities in the Federal Register Search as ‘Urban Wildland Interface Communities Within the Vicinity of Federal Lands That Are at High Risk From Wildfire” and then consider legislation to make a dangerous situation worse: Callahan, Etna, Fort Jones, Gazelle, Horse Creek, Klamath River, Quartz Valley, Sawyers Bar, Scott Bar and Seiad Valley
S.493 proposes to offset the pain by authorizing $5 million a year to create Wilderness Area and Wild and Scenic Rivers related jobs, visitor centers and kiosks. Undoubtedly, this money will go to more populated areas like Southern California. I have not heard that the tourism that comes from our Wilderness Areas has ever contributed a significant amount to the local economy. Perhaps a kiosk in Greenview would change that.
Another $5 million a year will go to firefighting in the Wilderness and Wild and Scenic Areas. That is good, but a bit shy of the mark. Last year in Siskiyou County alone, the Hancock, Uncles Complex and Rush fires (mostly Wilderness) burned 28,000 acres in Siskiyou County, threatening local communities and costing the federal government more than $12 million to try and contain them from moving into populated areas.
If you look at the details of the example used the article, most reasonably minded people are going to say that the leaseholder has gone too far.
This "going too far" lends credibility to the enviro's position. It also points to the underlying problem with grazing leases, which is that the lease takes on higher and higher value. And sometimes the lease has more value than the actual land that the rancher owns.
And another issue that has emerged is that of recreational use. A grazing lease entitles the leaseholder to the right of grazing, not the recreational rights. When a situation arises where the leaseholder is making more money operating a dude ranch and a hunting ranch than he is grazing, it has gone too far.
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