Here's a story from Jessica Hodge on the DC Lands team about the Bush attacks on wilderness. This article is intended for the Chapter newsletter but since our newsletter won't go out again until September, I am sharing it now. Jane Clark Bush Administration Actions Attack our Natural Heritage Over the past months, the Bush Administration has issued a series of policy changes and settlement agreements that fundamentally undermine protection of millions of acres of BLM lands across 11 western states. Recent announcements regarding the inventory and interim protection of wilderness quality lands and the resuscitation of an obscure frontier-era statute called RS2477 mean that vast swaths of the American west are now vulnerable to roadbuilding and ORV abuse, oil and gas development, and destructive mining operations. To counter these brazen attacks, the Sierra Club is working on the national level with a number of coalitions to expose the magnitude of the threats and hold the Bush administration accountable for aggressively seeking to undermine protections for the public lands that American's cherish. At the local level, it will be important to support defensive efforts as these policies play out around the country, mobilizing public lands activists and building broad public support for protecting these important pieces of our natural heritage. Bush Administration says "No More Wilderness"? Late in the evening on Friday, April 11, the Department of Interior entered into a settlement agreement with the State of Utah in which Secretary Norton 1) Revoked existing protections for wilderness-quality BLM lands called Wilderness Study Areas (WSAs), renounced its obligations to conduct new inventories and wilderness reviews of BLM lands, and rescinded the BLM Wilderness Inventory and Study Procedures Handbook -- which outlines criteria for considering wilderness on a level playing field with other uses for public lands. This settlement, strips away special protections for millions of acres of pristine land not just in Utah but across the west. Moreover, it threatens citizen-proposed wilderness initiatives such as those in majestic canyons of Arizona and red rock country of Utah. The Interior Department oversees 250 million acres of federal lands administered by the BLM in 11 Western states as well as Alaska. This is amazingly beautiful and ecologically diverse land -- deserts, mountains, forests, redrock canyon country, sweeping grasslands, icy peaks and tundra. Of this BLM land, only about 6.5 million acres have been designated as wilderness by Congress. Another 15 million acres have been formally inventoried a designated as Wilderness Study Areas before the 1991 deadline. With the Department of the Interior's new policy, the rest of the BLM lands will not be studied for its wilderness qualities and not then recommended to Congress for protection. The bottom line: wilderness values that may exist on as many as 220 million acres of BLM lands (much of which has obvious and spectacular wilderness qualities) can no longer even be studied or recommended to Congress for it to designate additional wilderness areas. Outdated Statute Allows Roads to Ruin Across our Public Lands A new Bureau of Land Management (BLM) regulation could lead to the giveaway of precious lands within our National Parks and Monuments, National Forests, Wildlife Refuges, and protected Wilderness Areas. The final rule on "Conveyances, Disclaimers and Corrections Documents," issued on January 6, resurrects the 137 year-old Revised Statute 2477 (RS 2477), which allows individuals and local governments to lay claim to abandoned trails, cow paths, and even river beds on publicly owned lands, and convert them into damaging highways across our treasured National Parks, Refuges, and Wilderness areas. The rule was originally promulgated to facilitate settlement across the west. Although RS 2477 was repealed in 1976 and replaced with an updated process for addressing legitimate rights-of-ways across public lands, the new rule opens the door for states, counties, and special interests to file thousands of unsubstantiated rights-of-way claims. Uniting Against a Common Foe The scope and breadth of the Bush administration's attack on our public lands may yield one positive, unintended consequence within the Sierra Club grassroots network. These threats provide a common ground for many different grassroots constituencies that work on a wide variety of issues affecting public lands-such as grazing, ORV abuse, national monuments, and wilderness-and unite us against a common foe. To fight these attacks, diverse grassroots activists will need to educate, train, and mobilize this grassroots army to defend our public lands. Jessica Hodge Lands Protection Program Sierra Club tel: 202.675.7910 fax: 202.547.6009 - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - To view the Sierra Club List Terms & Conditions, see: http://www.sierraclub.org/lists/terms.asp