Wilderness and "Closure"

The feds agents have all kinds of ways to entangle public lands in complicated schemes that, for all practical purposes, prevent them from the stated multi use public dedication that public land management purpose is supposed to be dedicated to.

Just what does true multi use really mean? Obviously it means different things to different people, and has not been static, through the years.

Just ask the former loggers who have this food product on their shelf what they think about the preserving the ecology of old-growth forests to maintain a habitat for nesting spotted owls.


In 2008, my partner and I bid for some forestry contracting work clearing overgrown forest land in the Fishlake National Forest. The contract work start date was contingent on pending surveys of the nesting goshawk population. If there were found to be nesting goshawks in the area, the beginning of work operations in the area would have to be delayed appropriately to avoid disturbing the nesting and brooding goshawk pair.

Why does the use of one preclude the good pleasure of another? Who gets priority or first pick? Why does one particular group or interest represent more "goodness" or "merit" than any other particular group?

I don't know. The loudest voice, or the most popular, seems to rule the day.

When I lived on the Colorado Front Range for several years, I saw dramatic illustration of how irrational this rule can have been applied in historic times. During the frantic settling and mining history of the West, Colorado was ruled by railroad and mining interests. If there was something to be dug out of the ground, or needed some rails to get you there quick, you only need bring enough men and shovels and dynamite, and mountains could be overcome.




Eventually, mountains were overcome, and there was nothing left in places but barren ugliness. That was such a sadness, if we had known what we were doing, we would have wept at the madness. In these beautiful places, we bypassed the beauty to hurry through dark underground labyrinths, past the mountains and forests and the rivers and streams, on our way to more of the man-created ugliness. Incredible.

Okay. Enough of the hubris. Stop, before we destroy everything that brings wonder and joy to human hearts. "Tree hugging" is certainly justified, from this very personal perspective.








And who is to say, after we fell all the two thousand year old Douglas firs in the forest, how will they ever be replaced for our children?

These kinds of questions cannot be answered. There are no answers, only questions. The point is to ask them before it is too late, and ask the informed question there IS an answer for now. We must ask before we do a thing we now know that we CAN do, if we SHOULD do? Therein lies wisdom.

My friend, Patricia, mentions an incident that took place some few years ago in one division of the Canyonlands National Park, where a temporary closure of the area was implemented and permanent closure was urged by some certain extreme advocates. If it is the same event I have researched and have received reports on now, the closure was implemented in the summer of 1995. It was occasioned by an unusual event documented at this NPS WEB site. Some visitors to the Horseshoe Unit "Great Gallery" happened by chance to discover some invaluable and as yet unknown cache of artifacts in that immediate vicinity.

The people were good enough to report their find undisturbed to the park service officials, and the closure was implemented immediately, so that archaeologists and other scientists could have a chance to study this find in place, undisturbed as it had been cached for aeons of time. They also took the opportunity to comb the area for any other such artefacts. After they were satisfied that the search was complete and thorough, the closure was lifted. Thus it has been explained to me. Sounds reasonable and prudent.

On the flip side of that story, I am personally aware of professional pot hunters who take little regard for public interest in such artifacts. They are interested in the merchantability of artifacts on the black market, and it is apparently substantial.


Private collectors prize the baskets and pots of the ancient peoples for their own private viewing, and care little for public interest or ownership of such property. I really don't care either, but I believe in upholding the law of the land.

When I was working with Rocky Mountain Research, my partner for a time was a forester who had invested substantial time and effort studying and arranging a forest timber sale that was timed to benefit the harvest cycle of the trees, and thus public interest in profit and merchantability. The plan was to selectively harvest the area with clear-cutting methods that are most efficient for that predominant species and the loggers working the area, as well as rapid reforestation and recovery efforts.

The proposal for the timber sale was opposed by a local environmental group, and tied up in court. It has never been settled. Most of the standing timber is well past prime now, and not worth logging. The Forest Service would likely have to pay a contractor to clear cut the area rather than use the profits from harvesting timber to pay for their logging operations. In the mean time, the predominantly lodgepole pine stand has become heavily infested with bark beetles and dwarf mistletoe disease, and is largely without value at the sawmill, but stands as a substantial hazard to wildfire threat.






Is this the point of environmental activism?








Why?


When I was working for the US Forest Service Ashley National Forest some years back, I noted something difficult to understand that made me sympathize with the "tree huggers" completely. I saw a beautiful grassy green meadow, perfectly surrounded with access road paved with nice drainage and gravel.


The meadow are was posted thoroughly around with signs indicating that it was a sensitive area and was closed to 4wd and ATV traffic. Yet this lovely green wet muddy meadow was criss-crossed with fresh scars running every which way forward and back and nowhere at all, and bogging deep holes in the mud.

Why?

Speaking of posting, you may have noticed that public land management agencies have resorted to new space age materials for signage in recent times. One of the reasons for this is simply economy. The materials are cheaper plastic based and last longer. The other is a more sinister indicator. It is because the newer materials are more resistant to vandalism and destruction.

When I was first introduced to the forest environment, I had read the works of men like John Muir and Gifford Pinchot. I would no more consider destroying a sign or defacing something in the forest than I would spit at my mother. But a new generation apparently regards the forest differently. They somehow see the world through a different set of lenses.

They don't regard the sacrosanct in every forest glade and grotto, like I do. What enjoyment do they derive from wilderness?  In the wanton and seeming senseless destruction of things, apparently.

The new sign posts are resistant to damage from being shot, driven over stomped, uprooted, spit upon, ect, ad nauseum....

Why?

My definition of "wise use" is best summarized thus:

Verily I say, that inasmuch as ye do this, the fulness of the earth is yours, the beasts of the field and the fowls of the air, and that which climbeth upon the trees and walketh upon the earth;

Yea, and the herb, and the good things which come of the earth, whether for food or for raiment, or for houses, or for barns, or for orchards, or for gardens, or for vineyards;

Yea, all things which come of the earth, in the season thereof, are made for the benefit and the use of man, both to please the eye and to gladden the heart;

Yea, for food and for raiment, for taste and for smell, to strengthen the body and to enliven the soul.

And it pleaseth God that he hath given all these things unto man; for unto this end were they made to be used, with judgment, not to excess, neither by extortion.

And in nothing doth man offend God, or against none is his wrath kindled, save those who confess not his hand in all things, and obey not his commandments.  (Doctrine and Covenants:59:16-21)

Lessons from the Forest revisited

As I have pointed out before, the forest does not seem to question the purpose of existence.

I do.

Someone quotes a famous philosopher as saying, "The unexamined life is not worth living". What does that say about those of us who feel that big chunks of life are just something to suffer through? Those who are wont to contemplate their navel are welcome to do so -- just don't expect me to be enthralled by the view.

Lessons from the Trees

A couple of prosaic pieces I wrote some time ago, reflecting upon my relationship with wilderness.

Legacies of Endurance

I made a pilgrimage this weekend to the slopes of Mount Evans, to pay my respects to a grove of peculiar trees that inhabit that locale.

These the pines of a particular breed that choose to live their lives out, at forbidding lofty heights, where other species abjure. Fire and rain, wind and snow, all the elements combine to blast these enduring creatures without pity or respite.

Not the towering graceful beauties of the forest, these. The aged pines are twisted and gnarled into bizarre stunted gnomes. Battle scars from aeons of withstanding the destructive forces of nature cover their flanks.

And yet they endure.

Some of the oldest patriarchs, clinging to life by the thinnest of threads, have witnessed the awesome pagent of an unimaginable span of ages, as time passed before them, hundreds upon hundreds of seasons spinning by, a thousand generations in the lifetime of men.

I consider these trees, with their stunning longevity. They do not complain about the travail or suffering, though many of them have obviously suffered greatly. They do not question their purpose, or falter in the mission -- to live, and keep on living. The trees endure, and do not ask why.

There is an incredible, priceless beauty in endurance. Perhaps it is beyond our understanding today. I feel certain that the trees possess this secret knowledge.

How long will it take us to learn?

Great and Small

Towering firs raise into the blazing blue,
their boughs reaching up in mighty supplication.
Framing the world across mountain tops and airy ridges,
seemingly, holding up the sky.

On forest floor below, humbly graced,
with lacy bracken ferns, lush green, so pleasing to the eye.
Bowed with fronds sweeping low to the earth,
catching the sun's few spare rays.

Climbing Paradise Ridge

I owned the tops of the mountains today. No others tracked the smooth white surface of the cold, clean snow. The mountain heights and I held our secret soul tryst, a chaste and joyous virtue only open to the lone and lonely.

I traverse the high passes, seeming so near to the pale blue sky, bracing against the fierce onslaught of the merciless freezing north wind. Howling gusts sweep up gritty blasts of icy snow grains in a ground blizzard, below a dark horizon troubled by passing storm clouds. As I struggle upward, the icy wind steals my breath away with each passing burst.

In the shelter of the deep shady canyon, I pause before tall green firs swaying and sighing as the force of the gale funnels up the slope, the wind whistling and moaning through the tossing boughs like the keening of mourners. The feet of the great trees stand deeply buried beneath the drifts.

Laboring to slowly climb the steep slope, bundled heavily against the freezing cold, my body is soon dripping with sweat. As the moisture accumulates under my hat and across the back of my neck, a rime of ice quickly forms around my head, into the simulation of a frosted white helmet.

I stop at the summit for a brief respite, in the lee of a swarm of boulders. I comb the ice out of my hair. Over the top of the broad peak, bare crusted snow is sculptured by the wind. The blowing snow appears to form sinuous snakes that writhe and coil and dance like living creatures. A sort of white noise, the continuous susurration of millions of snow grains skittering and slithering along, masks the roaring of the wind and creates a deep dynamic silence. Pressure against my back builds and ebbs from the force of the wild wind.

I have overstayed my welcome. The wind intensifies and the snow turns into heavier pellets that plaster across the front of my jacket and trousers, until I start to resemble an animate snowman. I hasten down the front side of the mountain, and as I pass, drifting snow quickly obliterates the traces of my passage.