Man Versus Wild

“Once our last wildlands are paved, logged and polluted, they can never be replaced.”

Sierra Club Wildlands Campaign

• In 1964, Congress passed the Wilderness Act, but 319 million acres of wilderness remains unprotected under the law.
• Just 4.7% of our nation’s landmass is protected by law.

PROTECTING WILDERNESS AREAS

Alaska:

Izembek National Wildlife Refuge and Wildnerness is threatened by a proposed land exchange and road that would run through lands with internationally significant wildlife and wetlands values. The road building would require Congress to remove land from the National Wilderness Preservation System (an unprecedented action). The threats to bird and other wildlife are significant. The Alaska Peninsula caribou herd has shrunk from 10,000 to less than 1,000 in the last 20 years and the road could further stress their survival.

Arizona:

Of the 31 million acres of public land in the State, only 4.5 million acres are protected as wilderness. There is an estimated 6 million acres of wilderness-quality land still unprotected. Population of Arizona has tripled since 1970. Development, sprawl and off road vehicles pose a threat to the state’s wild areas. Mining, logging, drilling and road building are chipping away at and fragmenting Arizona’s wild areas.

Cabeza Prieta (of the Southern Arizona Desert) National Wildlife Refuge is threatened by motorized vehicles and damage from trespassers. The Cabeza Prieta Refuge spans over 860,000 acres (an area about the size of Rhode Island). Although the Wilderness Act of 1964 prohibits the use of motors and motorized equipment in wilderness areas, the refuge is used by border patrol, who drive large four-wheel drive vehicles through the area.

A Canadian company is seeking to build an open pit copper mine in the Santa Rita Mountains outside of Tucson, Arizona.

Colorado:

San Juan National Forest will see 127 new wells and associated pipelines and roads built, just north of the Southern Ute Indian Reservation.

Oregon:

Lewis and Clark Mt. Hood Wilderness Act of 2007: Desginates 125,000 acres of new wilderness and 81 miles of river, and a new 34,000 acre Mount Hood National Recreation Area with improved access for mountain biking and other recreational activities.

Only 13% of Oregon’s 16 million acres of National Forest are currently protected as wilderness. Approximately 5 million additional acres of wild and roadless areas remain suitable for wilderness designation.

Montana:

Montana’s Rocky Mountain Front was protected in 1997 by the Forest Service placing a 15-year moratorium on new oil and gas leases within the Lewis and Clark National Forest. The decision could be rescinded by the Bush Administration. In addition, some 50 leases have already been granted to drill for oil and gas in the area.

Wyoming:

In the Wyoming Range, there are 700,000 acres of remote alpine scenery which provides wildlife habitat in the southern reaches of the Greater Yellowstone ecosystem. The Upper Green River Basin’s natural gas fields are geologically close to this area, which is now also under threat from oil and gas drilling. 100,000 acres are already leased for energy development, along with another 44,600 acres recently offered up by the Forest Service.

Wyoming now has the most oil and gas wells on game habitat, with 34,808 wells.

Utah:

Just south of Utah’s White River, the BLM office has a plan to lease public lands and allow drilling of 60 natural gas wells on federal and state lands.

The Bush Administration has approved leases and exploration activities for oil and gas drilling development on Utah lands adjacent to national and state parks or lands that Congress is considering designating as wilderness.

New Mexico:

Otero Mesa is home to coyotes, black-tailed prairie dogs, pronghorn antelope and mule deer, along with threatened and endangered songbirds that nest in the shrubs and grasses. A bipartisan call to BLM to halt drilling in the Otero Mesa was denied and the wildlands continue to be threatened by oil and gas exploration and drilling.

North Carolina:

Pocosin Lakes National Wildlife Refuge is habitat to over 200 species of birds, over 40 species of mammals and over 40 species of reptiles and amphibians. This area is threatened by a proposed Navy landing field with heavy jet traffic.

Louisiana:

Sabine National Wildlife Refuge, considered one of the top 20 birding spots in North America and home to more than 200 species of birds, still lacks critical funding for habitat stabilization, monitoring and important hazardous materials clean-up efforts from 2005 hurricane season.

Wilderness areas are coming under increasing pressure from oil and gas drilling:

In Colorado, Montana, New Mexico, Utah and Wyoming alone, the federal government has currently leased almost 27 million acres of public lands for oil and gas drilling. Drilling has nearly doubled on these lands over a decade.

Public Health and Toxics Issues associated with oil and gas drilling and waste:

• Hydraulic Fracturing: Injection of known toxic chemicals into or close to drinking water supplies
• Pits: Contamination of groundwater, soil and air from the storage and disposal of oil and gas wastes in unlined and lined pits.
• Air Pollution: Increased low-level ozone (smog), toxic levels of hydrogen sulfide, localized zones of airborne hydrocarbons.
• Hydrogen Sulfide: Toxic gas sometimes associated with oil and gas development.

Oil and Gas Accountability Project

Coal and mineral mining in the wilderness pollute groundwater and other water bodies and destroy wild areas:

Mountain Top Removal, a method of mining coal that destroys wild areas and buries watersheds in silt, has leveled 1.4 million acres of slopes and peaks in the Appalachian Mountains (Reece is the author of the critically acclaimed "Lost Mountain: A Year in the Vanishing Wilderness; Radical Strip Mining and the Devastation of Appalachia."

Coal mining is a dangerous occupation. Many coal miners suffer from chronic lung disease and cancer.

Civil War-era laws give mining companies priority over the public on our public lands.

Nonprofit organizations working on oil, natural gas and coalbed methane

Development is sprawling into wild areas

Development does not necessarily need to “expand out” but development and growth can be planned as compact. This is more efficient for cost and the environment, as compact development allows for less building of roads and driving and has a smaller footprint on the land.

Environment Colorado: Expanding the Denver Growth Area

National Audubon Society: Population and Habitat: Making the Connection

Roads and Roadless areas:

BACKGROUND:

In January of 2001, the U.S. Forest Service adopted the Roadless Area Conservation Rule, conserving 58.5 million acres of National Forests and Grasslands from most logging and road construction.

However, the rule was rescinded by the Bush Administration in 2005 because they favored a state petition process which would allow road building in 34 million acres of inventoried roadless areas (IRA), 59% of the total IRAs.

In 2006, the U.S. District court for Northern District of California reinstated the rule, finding that the Bush Administration had violated the National Environmental Policy Act and the Endangered Species Act.

POINTS:

Roadless areas make up 58.5 million acres of National Forest lands in 38 states and Puerto Rico.

The Roadless Rule has received widespread support, receiving more public comments than any federal rule in history.

America’s national forests are currently covered with 386,000 miles of roads (enough to encircle the earth 15 times).

The Wilderness Society’s National Forest Roadless Areas page

MORE HELPFUL SITES:

Campaign for America’s Wilderness list of regional organizations

Our Nation’s Wild Forests at Risk: The Wilderness Society

Vacationing in the Wild: State by State Active Outdoor Recreation Economy Report