50 YEARS STRONG! Wilderness Is a Battle That Always Needs Waging by Paul Andersen
Total Page：16
File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb
Jon Mullen protecting wild places and wildlife, for their sake – and ours Summer 2017 50 YEARS STRONG! Wilderness is a battle that always needs waging By Paul Andersen hirty years ago I interviewed Connie Harvey about the founding of T Wilderness Workshop. Connie said she was grateful that wilderness under statutory protection would no longer need defenders. “In order to preserve the land in its natural state,” she said, “it is absolutely necessary to have the kind of protection afforded by official wilderness areas. It is wonderful to feel that it is safe, that this is one battle we won’t have to go on fighting.” Or will we? In today’s political climate, nothing is guaranteed, espe- cially the protection of wilderness. Saving the legacy of visionaries who bequeath wilderness as a national legacy will be the job of future genera- tions. “The wilderness law is good,” acknowledged Connie, “but there are people bending it all the time, so it requires constant vigilance.” Wilderness historian Rod Nash writes: “Presently, in the 48 contiguous states, protected wilderness is approximately equal to paved surfaces: each occupies about two-percent of the total land mass. Wilderness is an endangered geographical species, and our generation has the final say about its continued existence.” Fighting a protracted campaign for wilderness requires diligence, perseverance, activism and faith that the values of wilderness will always have advocates. And what better role models for that campaign than Wilderness Workshop founders Connie Harvey, Joy Caudill and Dottie Fox? Their collective vision, boldness and tenacity set a tone 50 years ago CONTINUED ON PAGE 3 SUMMER SCHEDULE PG. 13 JUNE 2012 | Wild Works 1 REFLECTIONS Dottie Fox was Aspen Wilderness Workshop’s (AWW) Board President when I was hired as the first full-time employee in 1997. Until then, AWW had been an all-volunteer organization with a hands-on board. There had been the occasional part-time staffers and short-term offices in the Wheeler Opera House and ACES, but it was a big step for AWW to employ someone full time. Dottie railed against the large national groups that spend so much money to raise money to cover over- head, money that could be going to real on-the-ground environmental work. The all-volunteer AWW had been tremendously successful, doubling the Maroon Bells-Snowmass Wilderness and securing Congressional wilderness designation for the Hunter-Fryingpan, Collegiate Peaks, West Elks and Raggeds Wilderness Areas. But that was a simpler time when the issues were more black and white and the politics more amenable to public lands protection. I was hired to lead the efforts around the White River National Forest management plan revision. The Land and Resource Management Plan (LRMP), as it is formally called, determines how every one of the 2.3 million acres of WRNF is managed, how the 5,000+ miles of roads and trails are utilized, and how the competing interests between recreation, wildlife, oil and gas, hard rock mining, ski area development, grazing, water development, and timber cutting would be balanced…a task so daunting in scope and complexity that it exceeded the capacity of the all- volunteer AWW. Dottie, along with her fellow “Belles” Connie Harvey and Joy Caudill, were notoriously frugal and, out of neces- sity, reluctantly embraced the new professional staff paradigm. When I came aboard in 1997, our membership was shrinking and had dropped below 100. AWW was well known amongst the old timers in Aspen but not much beyond. In 2004, we dropped the word Aspen from our name, to be known simply as the Wilderness Workshop. Though much of the land around Aspen was protected as wilderness, many ecologically important areas across the White River National Forest still needed an advocate. Plus, it didn’t always help to show up in the more conservative towns and counties advertising that we are from Aspen and here to help! Twenty years later, it seems the gambit has paid off. It’s our 50th Anniversary Year and our reach has never been greater. Our mailing list is 6,000 strong. We are a force known to politicians, academics, and land managers. We provide leadership to and collaborate with our colleague organizations across the state, banded together through the Southern Rockies Conservation Alliance. We’re blazing trails with our work pushing back against the oil and gas industry’s destructive practices. Our conservation initiatives are manifesting into legislation such as the Thompson Divide and Continental Divide Bills. (Have a look at the timeline on this newsletter’s center spread highlighting select accomplishments). WW now has a full-time staff of seven working every day to protect and conserve your public lands. We deploy a full toolbox to inform, educate, coax, cajole, argue, and, when we must, fight through the courts to ensure positive ecological outcomes for our beloved wild places. None of this would be possible without the enduring partner- ship we have with this community of wildlands lovers. Your moral support buoys our spirits. Your financial support enables us to bring a powerful voice to the table on your behalf. We are honored to do this important work on your behalf. Unfortunately, the tension between conservation and exploitation isn’t going away anytime soon. So, here’s to another 50 years! I hope Dottie, who passed away in 2006, approves. —Sloan Shoemaker, Executive Director 2 Wild Works | JUNE 2012 2 Wild Works | Summer 2017 Summer 2017 | Wild Works 3 John Fielder How can these FROM PAGE 1 50 YEARS STRONG! efforts be kept alive into the uncertain that carries on today. 430,353 acres of rugged mountains, future? Hopton re- These determined women were as glacially carved valleys and diverse flects: “There are a lot passionate as the early suffragettes, wildlife. These lands provide a clean of gray heads in the having found their moral calling in watershed and healthy air shed, and wilderness movement wilderness preservation. Starting they represent the heartfelt passion today. What we need in the mid-‘60s, they spent two of wilderness protectors who will to do is make sure decades forming coalitions, studying go on working hard to preserve the we instill the love of maps, ground-truthing the land, wid- legacy of pristine creation, sanitiz- wilderness in the next ening boundaries and using creative ing it from man’s meddling and the generations.” WW helped establish keystone political action to more than double direct influences of modern indus- Wilderness values wilderness areas; today, the the size of the 80,000-acre Maroon trial life. must be inspired organization works to protect mid-to-low elevation migration Bells-Snowmass Wilderness Area to again and again from “Wilderness Workshop has corridors and riparian habitats, its present 181,976 acres. accomplished a lot,” says long-time what moralist Albert as well. Their individual efforts began board member and wilderness activ- Schweitzer concluded shortly after passage of the Wilder- ist Charles Hopton, “but it still needs over a century ago. “The great fault ness Act of 1964 with letter writing protection in perpetuity. The same of all ethics hitherto has been that at their dining room tables. Then holds true with environmental pro- they believed themselves to have came the need to formalize an tection. We need to remain diligent to deal only with the relations of organization and create an identity because laws change, and some man to man… A man is ethical only to give their mission clout. As a congressman could say, ‘Let’s make when life, as such, is sacred to him, result, Wilderness Workshop was a Disneyland at Maroon Bells!’ We that of plants and animals, as well as born in 1967. can’t rest on our laurels. We can’t that of his fellow men.” Today, Aspen is surrounded give up. We can’t just fold our tent, Spirituality is another galvanizing by the Maroon Bells-Snowmass, but we must continue.” force. When Dottie Fox lost her soul Hunter-Frying Pan, and Collegiate A glance at the past shows WW’s mate, Murray Pope, she went to the Peaks Wilderness areas, collectively many accomplishments, from lobby- wilderness for comfort and said: ing in the early ‘70s to restrict cars “The longer I walked, the more I lost at Maroon Lake and protect Hunter track of everything, and suddenly Creek from real estate develop- the wilderness began to work its ment to conservation oversight for magic on me, and it put things into Conundrum Creek, Spruce Creek, perspective. Wilderness is where I go Snowmass Creek, Burnt Mountain, when I want to be renewed. It may Red Table Mountain, Thompson CONTINUED ON PAGE 15 Divide, Roan Plateau, Sloane Peak and more. WW has made a difference on oil shale, air and water quality, military overflights, wilderness monitoring, and the Hidden Gems campaign. Outreach includes guided hikes, Naturalist Nights, Artists in Wilderness and ecosys- tem restoration. 3 2 Wild Works | Summer 2017 SummerJUNE 20122017 | Wild Works 3 MOVING THE NEEDLE “Capital Watch” defends public lands and bedrock environmental protections anuary was a somber month made on climate and protections for participants are armed with knowl- J at Wilderness Workshop’s wildlife and wildlands. We called it edge and confidence when they offices. We were hit hard by the “Capital Watch” with an “a” instead express their opinions. very real possibility that our new of an “o” to convey that we are Capital Watch was covered by lo- president and Congress would monitoring all three branches of cal press, and the response has been be the most anti-public lands, government in our nation’s Capital: tremendous.