Long Live Weeds and Wilderness By Del Albright

Have you ever been out on the trail, whether it is the red rocks of Moab, the deserts of California, or the fall splendor of the eastern woods, and wondered why on earth someone would want to deny you such an opportunity? Well, there are folks who'd just as soon you lived in the city and didn't recreate on our public lands.

Worse yet, there are plenty of eco-zealots that believe we need to let the earth return to some "natural" state (perhaps as it existed in the era of the dinosaurs?). This really hit home for me the other day when I was exchanging friendly emails with someone who opposes our form of outdoor recreation. He signed his email: "Long Live Weeds and Wilderness."

This has more meaning than meets the eye. What do you suppose he meant by "weeds?" Wilderness we understand; but weeds? I've given this some thought and my interpretation is that this kind of zealot would fit the above category of let Mother Nature prevail. In other words, let's have native species growing rather than the thousands of imported species of plant-life that now inhabit many parts of the America.

He would probably also rant and rave at someone who wants to landscape around their house with fire-resistant, or drought resistant vegetation in an area such as southern California where fires take homes every year. He would probably not want you to have a summer home in the woods, where trees might grow alongside or even up through your deck. He would certainly be against management of the land based on the needs of humans.

I've read some USFS documents lately that have nearly excluded the needs and rights of humans. It scares me. Since when do we put wildlife, weeds, and Wilderness ahead of our needs (and rights) as taxpayers? And that says nothing about the fact that we ARE at the top of the food chain.

There is little or nothing we can do about the fact that folks like to live and recreate away from big cities. We humans are a part of the ecosystem and we need to come first when it comes to planning how we manage our public lands. Now that is not to say that we can't find ways to protect wildlife species when needed. We can also find methods to use our natural resources without destroying the land that provides them.

But to suggest that we need to let things return to some semblance of our far distant history is ludicrous at best. It ain't gonna happen! There's too many of us out there and our needs as humans have changed drastically since we were carrying sticks and fighting off big-footed fire-breathers. We can't go back.

Then comes the question of how much Wilderness do we need; followed by what we define as Wilderness. You can forget about looking up the original 1964 Wilderness Act, as the zealots (and even some congress folks) don't restrict themselves to that fairly common sense approach to designating wilderness. The original Act talked about "pristine areas" and "roadless" areas. But it didn't talk about the brush field near your subdivision.

Now the zealots have the Wildlands Project that seeks to establish thousands of NEW Wilderness areas across the USA. There are 400 more Wilderness areas proposed in California alone..something like 6 million more acres. And these new Wilderness areas include every type of vegetation from grasslands to brush fields to oak-woodlands around subdivisions. It makes no sense.

Part of their thinking is the connectivity of bio-regions (big mouth full, huh?). Well, it means providing corridors throughout all types of ecosystems (from grass to the high Rockies) that wildlife can use to get from one protected area to the next. It has to do with the concept of Rewilding of America (I have written about this in other columns).

Do you see the pattern developing? It's very complex; but the bottom line is simple. We recreationists are being excluded from our public lands by a myriad of mechanisms. It must stop! We must be a part of the management of our public lands. Our say has to matter. Our voice needs to be heard as loud as someone who dreams of "weeds and Wilderness."

Created 06/08/99. Last Modified: