New plans for wild areas

Abstract

Plans to extend protected lands in the US are causing controversy. Nigel Williams reports. Plans to extend protected lands in the US are causing controversy. Nigel Williams reports. A move by the US government to preserve more public lands as wilderness has been welcomed by environmentalists but has angered ranchers, sportsmen and energy companies that fear access to land will be reduced. The new policy, initiated at the end of last year, directs the Bureau of Land Management to survey its vast holdings from Alaska to Arizona in search of unspoilt wildlife areas. The agency can then designate these as ‘wild lands’. Protection will vary from site to site, but in general such lands will be protected from activities that disrupt habitat or destroy the solitude of the wild, according to the Interior Department. This might mean banning oil drilling, uranium mining or cattle grazing in some areas. It could also mean restrictions on some recreational activities. The agency is little known by Americans who mostly think of national parks as the major wildlife refuges. But it actually has a mandate over 400,000 square miles of US land — an area nearly four times the size of Colorado. Forty years ago, a commission studied these lands and designated the most significant as national parks, national monuments or wilderness areas. But the commission also noted that much of the terrain had never been formally examined for conservation opportunities. They recommended a comprehensive inventory of these public lands, to identify all such areas that should be assigned a priority for protection, until lasting conservation decisions could be made by Congress. Only now, this work is beginning. So last month, the Interior Secretary, Ken Salazar, together with the BLM director Bob Abbey, announced a directive that reaffirmed the ability of the BLM to determine if there are public lands with wilderness characteristics, including ecological, scenic, recreational, educational and scientific values. The bureau is to make this planning assessment available to the public, who will have the chance to be involved in the process. Salazar has designated the process as ‘high priority” and asked the BLM to report back to him by the end of June. “Managing an area to protect its wilderness characteristics provides unique opportunities and benefits for present and future generations that may otherwise be irreparably lost,” he said. “Now the public can take into proper consideration all the resource values at stake, including the option of preserving some wonderful new wilderness areas.” But the proposals have raised fears amongst some of the public, and BLM officials have said that plans to protect particular regions will be revisited every 10–20 years to see how they are impacting on local communities and users. The proposals have also drawn anger from the energy industry. Kathleen Sgamma, a director of the Western Energy Alliance, which represents 400 oil and natural-gas companies, said the new policy could block some promising lands from drilling. “They're treating lands arbitrarily as de facto wildernesses,” she said. And Dean Heller, a Republican representative from Nevada, said: “The message of the November 3 election is that we want less regulation, less government intrusion. We want to keep these lands open,” he said.“Managing an area to protect its wilderness characteristics provides unique opportunities and benefits for present and future generations that may otherwise be irreparably lost.” “Managing an area to protect its wilderness characteristics provides unique opportunities and benefits for present and future generations that may otherwise be irreparably lost.” House Republicans say they will hold hearings on the new policy and perhaps seek to cut funding to the BLM for identifying and managing wild lands. “This harms economic growth”, said Rob Bishop, a Utah Republican who has taken over this year as chair of the House subcommittee on public lands. “The West is being abused,” he said. But environmentalists responded to the moves by stating that protecting wild lands is crucial — for flora and fauna, for humans craving solitude and even for economic growth, as tourists may be drawn to the hiking, hunting and rock climbing that are typically permitted in wilderness areas. “The economy is often tied to the health of the landscape,” said Josh Pollock, a director at the Center for Native Ecosystems in Denver. While Americans may wrangle over the future of wilderness areas owned by the government, they should look to the UK, where the government, as part of a range of major cost-cutting, potentially looks to hive off the country's few major wildlife areas it owns to wildlife charities. But it is reported the charities are seeking substantial funds to take on the job. The charity Plantlife published details of the negotiations last December, to highlight the potential problems ahead.