REI

Jonathan Hanson said:
Dan, check recent proposals in Congress if you think you were just hypothesizing.

By capital W wilderness I was referring to actual designated wilderness areas, in which by definition motorized travel is prohibited. Those areas comprise just 2.7 percent of all the land in the lower 48 states, and five percent if you count Alaska. On other public lands, motorized travel is a matter of policy and/or budget, and changeable based on public input.

It's a myth that you need to backpack 50 miles into a wilderness area to enjoy it. The days with a 63-pound pack (recalled from one trip) are over for me as well. But just standing on the edge and looking in, knowing it's being preserved for the benefit of the habitat and wildlife, would be enough for me. Some disagree . . .
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I'm cool with that, thanks for the enlightenment!:) I think I've been:owned
There are places like Hidden Lake in Glacier and many others that I would be very upset to see motorized vehicles in. If in fact they dis-allow mining and logging, than I am ok with no motor vehicle access too. I think it's all the hype that I get so worked up over. Thanks Jonathan.

http://wilderness.org/article/wilderness-bills-await-congressional-action

The Wilderness Act:


Created a way for Congress and Americans to designate "wilderness areas," which represent the nation's highest form of land protection. No roads, vehicles or permanent structures are allowed in designated wilderness. A wilderness designation also prohibits activities like logging or mining.


Created the National Wilderness Preservation System, which manages the nation’s protected wilderness areas.


Immediately put 9.1 million acres of wild American lands into the National Wilderness Preservation System, protecting them as designated wilderness.
Today, millions of Americans enjoy wilderness areas for hiking, camping, backpacking, fishing and more. The Wilderness Act continues to protect unspoiled wildlands with the possibility of new designations each year.


- See more at: http://wilderness.org/article/wilderness-act#sthash.KTYNB2LG.dpuf
 
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Question; Will national forests and BLM receive the same protections as what the wilderness act does? I want my access as much as I want to see it protected for future generations. What's to keep people like Harry Reid and his son, from doing some back room deal to sell off large portions of our lands to private corporations, like solar farms and logging companies? They say forest management is needed for the NF's but does that include clear cutting a large area? I see them replant new saplings in place, but why not just leave the forests alone? Yes the world needs lumber. Why not just make forest farms for lumber trees instead of wiping out vast areas of NF land?
 
Good! Now we can get back to more pressing debates: 1911 or Glock? Double rifle or bolt action? Froot Loops or Trix?

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Question; Will national forests and BLM receive the same protections as what the wilderness act does? I want my access as much as I want to see it protected for future generations. What's to keep people like Harry Reid and his son, from doing some back room deal to sell off large portions of our lands to private corporations, like solar farms and logging companies? They say forest management is needed for the NF's but does that include clear cutting a large area? I see them replant new saplings in place, but why not just leave the forests alone? Yes the world needs lumber. Why not just make forest farms for lumber trees instead of wiping out vast areas of NF land?
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Aye, those are the really big questions, with the fate of millions of square miles of public land at stake.

When logging companies replant clearcuts, they don't replicate the natural mix of species; they plant monocultures of fast-growing species, which hammers biological diversity. Legislation to prevent something as simple as that would be of huge benefit.
 
My problem with how they impliment the wilderness act. When they designate new wilderness in areas that have historically been open to vehicle access, instantly closing off historical routes. That is not pristine wilderness. You can't wave away an existing road without doing damage. Sometimes they preserve the route, and make the borders beside the route, and I am OK with that. But that doesn't happen often.
 
It's not just the Wilderness Area's that are being closed, it's the constant assault from all sides. I'd guess that 99% of us here support the military, but even the Marine's made a land grab at Johnson Valley. Closure always seems to be the easiest answer when it comes to any land use issue. The Rubicon Trail is under constant attack, the Dusy Ershim Trail goes right through a Wilderness Area, and that area still manages to survive. I think I'll be long gone before any of this truly restricts what I want to do, but I have hope that my grandson will still have access when he's old enough to go it on his own. I've also got Baja as my next door neighbor, plenty of places to go and spend my $$$ down there.

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Sadly, IMOP, if this were a gun thread and there was discussion about restricting what the public views as assault weapons I'll bet there would be a difference in some people's opinions. I mean, 95% of the guns that one might desire to own are still available.:rolleyes: (I picked that number out of thin air)
 
100acrehuphalump said:
I don't remember where the thread was no can I seem to find it. A member had posted a link to sign a petition through the Wilderness society to get our public lands back in the publics hands. I did sign the petition but now am bummed after I sent an email requesting how the organization felt about motorized vehicle access to said lands. Here is the response;

Hi Dan,

Thanks for your message. The Wilderness Act prohibits motorized and mechanized travel in Wilderness and we support that prohibition. The land management agencies have the authority to make exceptions for administrative and management purposes using a decision-making process call the “Minimum Requirements Analysis.” But that is not frequently done.

Thank you,
Margot
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This is the exception I was talking about for the "end-game". Only government officials and environmentalists (e.g. Wilderness Society VIP's) and cronies will have access to public lands in the future.

Cam
 
Only government officials and environmentalists (e.g. Wilderness Society VIP's) and cronies will have access to public lands in the future.
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Oh c'mon Cam. I've been involved in the process and I know that's simply absurd.
 
Actually Jonathan it's not absurd it does happen. Here in San Diego County there was a several thousand acre cattle ranch ( Lucky 5) was acquired to annex to the Anza Borrego State park however public access has been denied. I'm sure this is not the only time. I suspect that it is a local decision in most cases of this nature. I hope that reasonable co-operation of all concerned in the future could deliver something more equitable.
 
I've got some ideas; let's all go join and infiltrate the Sierra Club and REI and destroy them from within, just like our bureaucracy is doing to America. Or we join and become those VIPs with the special access and change their rules and by laws. Or we join and show them that what we do is not harmful and can be very helpful to the environment. Or we find a hacker to destroy their accounting. What about public calendar burning's? :) Like Cam and most of us here, I am mostly concerned with the End Game. It all seems to point in the direction of extreme limitation of motorized access in the long run of things. Government governs the people, but who governs the government?
 
I was employed by the Sierra club way back in 1995 when I was living in Seattle. We used to canvas neighborhoods going door to door pushing SC calendars and memberships. It was all about SELL, SELL, SELL, so much so I became burnt out quickly. It wasn't about nature and the environment. It was about generating income. We were encouraged to make people feel guilty into purchasing subscriptions and memberships all in the name of protecting the wilderness. If the employees didn't sell enough, they were terminated. At times we were given commissions from the sales as incentive to keep selling more. For us at first we felt like we were making a change by generating monies to lobby congress towards the SC's way of thinking. After some time I felt like a cog in their wheel of the giant corporation money making machine. Today I wonder how much of that money was used to line a congress person's pockets. I want to protect the environment like most of us do. I just want to be able to drive up and into it. Not everywhere mind you, but the continual usurping of public lands away from the people leads me to believe that this will never end and eventually our children's children will only get to enjoy it from behind a fence.
 
Here in San Diego County there was a several thousand acre cattle ranch ( Lucky 5) was acquired to annex to the Anza Borrego State park however public access has been denied.
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Woody, I knew something about the Lucky 5 annex but not the whole story, so I looked it up. Here's the genesis:

The Anza-Borrego Foundation (ABF) played a crucial role in creating a wildlife corridor from the desert floor to the Laguna Mountains when they purchased 2675 acres (or 63%) of the Lucky 5 Ranch in 2001 and transferred it to the state, thereby connecting Anza-Borrego Desert State Park to Cuyamaca Rancho State Park and the Cleveland National Forest. With the additional purchase of almost 2100 acres of the adjacent Rancho Cuyamaca/Tulloch Ranch in 2005 by the Nature Conservancy and the State Water Resources Control Board, a sizable portion of the desert park is now in the Laguna Mountains, straddling both sides of the Sunrise Highway. Further expansion is on the horizon as the foundation is now fundraising to purchase an additional 1170 acres of the Lucky 5 Ranch from the Daley family trust, which will retain the remaining 400 acres for private use. Conservation of all these ranch lands also means an expansion of outdoor recreation for county residents and visitors.

So, a significant majority of the addition was financed by a coalition of conservation groups, then donated to the state. I found nothing to indicate any four-wheel-drive clubs or associations had contributed. Adjacent to this information was a guide to the hiking trails on the ranch. So pubic access has not been denied; instead, this seems to me like the best kind of free-market conservation. To me it's no different, except in the specific aims, than the Rubicon Trail Association, which works to maintain vehicular access to the Rubicon Trail. Both represent citizen involvement in appropriate ways. Would you disagree?
 
^^^^You missed the part about all of the gates that went up preventing off highway travel (via fire roads) from the base of the Laguna's off of I-8 that allowed access to the top of the mountains prior to the land grab. Access to one narrow ribbon of road was more than could be tolerated.

Once again, just follow the $$$. To complete the circle on this thread, one of the $$$ streams starts at REI!
 
^^^^You missed the part about all of the gates that went up preventing off highway travel (via fire roads) from the base of the Laguna's off of I-8 that allowed access to the top of the mountains prior to the land grab. Access to one narrow ribbon of road was more than could be tolerated.
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Bob, I honestly don't get it. "Land grab?" How? It was purchased and then donated to the state. If an off-road club purchases a ranch and bulldozes a course around it, I don't consider that a land grab. If they then donate it to California with the stipulation that it remain open to four-wheel-drive vehicles, I don't consider that a land grab. Looking at a map of Anza Borrego (and having explored there several times), it's clear that a huge majority of the park is open to vehicular travel. So your statement that "access to one narrow ribbon of road was more than could be tolerated" does not seem to hold up.

I'm afraid we're approaching that point where generalized venom takes over, along with a lot of misinformation, and I don't want to cause any rifts. The statement I was addressing regarding the Lucky 5 addition to ABSP claimed that public access had been denied. That statement was untrue.

So I'll simply restate my own philosophy that there is room for both motorized recreation and wilderness (more of it, in fact) in our country. I refuse to cleave to either side that labels the other side entirely evil. Since I'm worried that's the trend of this thread it's probably best I bow out!
 
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This is one topic no one is going to agree on. I'll always be on the side of never supporting any business that supports the sierra club, if I can help it. We will beg to differ on this one Jonathan.
 
No problem, Scott. It's not the support or lack thereof for a particular organization that makes me stop participating. I've stopped supporting more than one conservation organization when I thought they became more about raising money than spending it effectively. On the other shoe, I also stopped supporting the NRA for exactly the same reason . . .

What makes me back off is when I feel the discussion has degraded into broad-stroked presumptions, blanket condemnations such as 'land grab' and 'public access denied,' and other spurious accusations. I find such demonizing among our group here no more palatable than when I read posts on environmentalist websites referring to 'four-wheel-drive morons' etc. So better for my own blood pressure that I let it go.

I'll close with an anecdote. A few years ago I was parked in a local shopping center that includes an organic grocery. I noticed a woman scowling at our Land Cruiser FJ60, and asked her about it. She made some remark about big SUVs, so I asked her what size house she lived in. She said, "None of your business," and I replied that she had just inserted herself in my life, and I simply wondered if she had the strength of her convictions. She finally said her house was "small" - 2000 square feet as I recall. "Air conditioned?" "Yes." "Electricity from TEP?" "Yes." So I said, "Well, for the last eight years my wife and I have lived in a 350-square-foot house that gets 100 percent of its electricity from solar and wind power. So I'm not sure you'd win if we had a carbon-footprint contest, and I think you might reconsider making hasty judgements." And I left.

It was awesome.

See you all in some other thread . . .
 
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