I attended the open house on Hidden Gems Wednesday evening, and found the behavior of most wilderness opponents extremely appalling. I hope the county commissioners realize that while the opponents in the room are certainly loud, they are not the majority. These people were saying that there's "already enough wilderness." They're clearly speaking only for themselves. We are all lucky to have such great "backyards" with easy access to beautiful public land, but it doesn't exist just for us. Public lands belong to every citizen of the United States, and carry purposes other than to exist as personal playgrounds for those who live near them.
Wilderness areas benefit everyone, even those who won't ever visit them, by protecting wildlife and plant species, watersheds and intact ecosystems. Wilderness areas provide clean air and water, can serve as carbon sinks, and provide habitat and protection for threatened and endangered species. Moreover, everyone can benefit from and appreciate the knowledge that in our highly developed and overcrowded country, some primitive, unspoiled places still exist.
The opponents at the open mouse repeatedly cut off Susie Kincade, wouldn't let her give her presentation, and provided no constructive input. The Hidden Gems campaign is not designed or run in a way that is "us vs. them," it is about the community collaborating to save the region's last, best places. The Hidden Gems proponents have done a great job taking input from those who are actually willing to work with them, removing about 50,000 acres of the proposal to accommodate mountain bikers, for example. However, other user groups are only concerned about getting to do whatever they want whenever they want, no matter the expense for others.
I hope those people who oppose a single new acre of wilderness for their own self-serving interests realize that by securing their privilege to take machines virtually anywhere, they will be exposing these ecologically diverse and sensitive places to the threats of development, resource extraction, and continued environmental destruction. Don't we have enough of that? Public lands belong not just to us, but to future generations, who shouldn't have to wish they could have experienced these special places when they were still special.
Josh Rumble
Avon
