Daily Wilderness News Clips

HELENA, Mont. - A new push for protection on the Rocky Mountain Front comes in the form of a letter to the state's congressional delegation. It is signed by 15 retired wildlife experts and land managers in Montana, including three former directors of Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks (FWP).

Retired FWP Front area supervisor Mike Aderhold added his name to the letter. The Rocky Mountain Front Heritage Act was unveiled last fall, and Aderhold says he and his co-signers are hoping a member of the Montana delegation will step up and sponsor it.

DENVER, CO (KUNC) - Conservationists are praising Colorado Congressman Jared Polis's decision to move ahead with plans to introduce a wilderness bill as soon as this fall.

U.S. Rep. Jared Polis sent a 14-page draft of legislation Friday evening to supporters and opponents of the Hidden Gems Wilderness Campaign, along with elected and safety officials. Titled "The Eagle and Summit County Wilderness Preservation Act," it includes about 170,000 acres of new protections in those counties, including additions to the Holy Cross and Eagles Nest wilderness areas.

SOLEDAD, Calif.-California's Pinnacles National Monument could become a national park and expand its wilderness from 16,000 acres to 19,000 acres.

Sen. Barbara Boxer has written legislation to elevate the status of Pinnacles, a 26,000-acre expanse of dramatic volcanic rock formations east of the Salinas Valley near the community of Soledad. It is also a nesting spot for endangered California condors.

Local politicians and statewide environmental groups today hailed a draft wilderness proposal being circulated by U.S. Rep. Jared Polis called the Eagle and Summit County Wilderness Preservation Act.

With Congress currently in recess, the proposal has not yet been formally submitted as a bill, but it reportedly is only focused on creating new wilderness and expanding existing wilderness in Eagle and Summit counties.

LAS CRUCES, N.M. - An expert with border security in his blood recently made a visit to New Mexico to share his views on a bill now in Congress that would add new wilderness and conservation designations to some areas along the border, including the Organ Mountains. Some opponents of the proposal now working its way through the Senate say they're concerned it could impact national security by limiting the border patrol's access to the area.

ASPEN, Colorado - U.S. Rep. Jared Polis will introduce a wilderness bill that provides some level of protection to roughly 70 percent of the lands targeted by environmentalists in Eagle and Summit counties as part of the Hidden Gems campaign.

But draft legislation released by the congressman shows that some high-profile jewels within the Hidden Gems will be left out of the bill, including Lower Piney north of Avon. In other cases, Polis is proposing a lesser protection than the wilderness designation.

SALT LAKE CITY - A public lands conservation proposal involving Piute County is inching forward, envisioning the possible creation of two new wilderness areas in this small county covering just 763 square miles.

In an update presented Thursday to board members of the state's School and Institutional Trust Lands Administration, associate director John Andrews said the wilderness areas would be in the western section of the county in the Tushar Mountains and the Rocky Ford area on the east fork of the Sevier River.

Pinnacles National Monument in the Gabilan Mountains above Soledad is one step closer to becoming a National Park.

On Thursday, U.S. Senator Barbara Boxer, D-San Francisco, introduced companion legislation to that of U.S. Rep. Sam Farr's, D-Carmel, of a year ago, a bill that would change the site's designation and add nearly 3,000 acres of the monument to the National Wilderness Preservation System.

Off the 101 Freeway in Central California is one of the older National Park Service units. In 1908, Theodore Roosevelt named 2,500 acres of the Gabilan Mountains, made up of "rock spires and crags that are remnants of an ancient volcano," as the Park Service puts it. Today, Pinnacles National Monument is 26,000 acres and there's a campaign to designated it as a National Park.