“In order to assure that an increasing population, accompanied by expanding settlement and growing mechanization, does not occupy and modify all areas within the United States and its possessions, leaving no lands designated for preservation and protection in their natural condition, it is hereby declared to be the policy of the Congress to secure for the American people of present and future generations the benefits of an enduring resource of wilderness.” (Wilderness Act, 1964)
From time immemorial people have protected special places, sometimes due to moral imperatives, sometimes for more mundane reasons. America’s Wilderness Act is a moral act demonstrating our generosity of spirit and humility to forego subduing the entire earth and to protect wild nature. The Act passed Congress by an overwhelming majority with only one no vote in the House.
In 1977 Senator Lee Metcalf from Stevensville led Congress to designate some of Montana’s best remaining wildlands as Wilderness Study Areas (WSA). They were to be managed to maintain their wilderness character and preserve their suitability for eventual Wilderness designation. The Bitterroot National Forest (BNF) is now belatedly proposing to enforce that law in the recently released Travel Plan.
Fifty years after the Wilderness Act and my how times have changed. Humility and generosity of spirit seem to be out of fashion. Response from some quarters to the Travel Plan is all about personal use, recreational use no less. Mountain bikers, especially, are getting torqued because restrictions are being put on where they can ride.
A self-described “diatribe” in the Ravalli Republic (4/16/15) by a bicycle rider goes so far as to advocate civil disobedience in response to limitations put on where he can ride his bike. Traditionally, civil disobedience was used to protect the greater public good or high principle.
This same individual declares, contrary to Senator Metcalf and the US Congress, “WSAs do not meet the basic requirements for inclusion to the Wilderness Preservation Act.”
The president of a local bike club argues restrictions on trails he likes to ride don’t make sense because he doesn’t see boot tracks there, as though the issue is one form of recreation versus another.
The issue is not that any particular form of recreation is bad; it is a matter of where it is appropriate. We learn early and generally accept the wisdom of not riding our bike in the garden or living room. When recreation becomes wreck-creation it is wrong, morally wrong if not also legally wrong. Wildness trumps recreation in the Wilderness Act.
Mountain bike organizations are possibly the most potent foes of Wilderness designation. In order to ride their bikes in WSAs they are willing to oppose Wilderness protection for the benefit of wild nature. One local bike store advocates for the severance of the Sapphire WSA by a bike trail right down its spine, permanently disqualifying that WSA as contiguous Wilderness. Even if mountain bikes are not the form of recreation most damaging to wildlands, mountain bikers are probably the most damaging organized resistance to Wilderness designation.
Humans can make choices and have many appropriate places to recreate. Resident wildlife and land and water resources do not have the choices or flexibility that we have. Potential damage from recreation can be far more serious and long lasting than having to drive to a different trailhead. Wildlands are continually being compromised and they aren’t making any more.
Will we pass today’s moral test? Is America too far into decadence and self-serving attitudes to care for creation and higher principles? There are no do-overs with this test.
Larry Campbell
Darby