Editorial on roadless areas by the Denver Post.
This is a fairly good editorial, but I want to point out that battling over these areas will never really end because the bastards keep coming back with their subsidized, destructive, nature-hating proposals. These people just have bad values.
Keeping the outdoors in intact will always require a constant effort, and in my view, folks who don’t help run the bastards off, don’t deserve to use the outdoors (although, of course, they will).
If you want to be an ethical outdoorsperson, everytime you come back from a major trip you owe it to write a letter, give a donation, try to convince friends, etc.
Ralph Maughan
Dr. Ralph Maughan is professor emeritus of political science at Idaho State University. He has been a Western Watersheds Project Board Member off and on for many years, and also its President. For many years he produced Ralph Maughan's Wolf Report. He was a founder of the Greater Yellowstone Coalition. He and Jackie Johnson Maughan wrote three editions of "Hiking Idaho." He also wrote "Beyond the Tetons" and "Backpacking Wyoming's Teton and Washakie Wilderness." He created and is the administrator of The Wildlife News.
Three decades and still no plan? It’s all akin to the seemingly never-ending study on the impact of snowmobiles to Yellowstone and its wildlife. Somewhere in all this I sense that there is some sort of consensus-seeking group-think taking place. Perhaps the right “facilitator” has not yet been found. Too many PowerPoint shows? More likely too many dollars from trade association lobbyists floating about.
I think Ralph hit it on the head: If you are not spending some of your own time, energy AND money to assist in turning public and political sentiment in the right direction, you are part of the problem. The groups with extreme views are too easy for the decision makers to blow off as fringe nut cases and then the great silent majority that keeps expressing rational concern about wildlife and wild places thinks that buying conservation group Christmas cards is all they need to do to help carry the water.
I like your comment “These people just have bad values;” but, I think it goes deeper. I think it runs in families and is really bad breeding. You know what happens on my ranch? When I have a bull that seems to have bad breeding; I steer him and that keeps it from spreading or being perpetuated. So, to me, the solution is obvious. We need to start steering Republicans. It’s an easy process. With a few turns of rope and a pocket knife, it only takes a minute.