Daily Wilderness News Clips

Montana's Sen. Jon Tester gave a presentation on a controversial forest bill here that packed in supporters and opponents of the wilderness-for- logging measure, and drew strong responses from both sides.

More than 350 people showed up at the Beier Auditorium on the University of Montana Western campus Saturday to hear directly from Tester about his bill. The visit came after months of criticism from wilderness opponents that Tester was trying to ram the bill through without hearing from people who live in the county most affected by the bill.

Chelsea Congdon and James Brundige of First Light Films recently completed a documentary called "Forever Wild: Celebrating America's Wilderness." Numerous PBS stations around the country are broadcasting it this fall as a complement to Burns' highly-anticipated national park series, which starts airing Sunday evening. It is often being shown right before or right after installments of Burns' series.

("Forever Wild" will first be aired on the Denver PBS available in the Roaring Fork Valley at 7 p.m. Wednesday, Sept. 30.)

Doña Ana County commissioners on Tuesday decided to back a federal measure that would create 259,000 acres of wilderness in the county.

Commissioners heard from several opponent and supporters of the wilderness area before voting 5-0 in favor of a resolution in support of the Organ Mountains-Desert Peaks Wilderness Act, introduced into Congress last week by New Mexico's senators.

On Tuesday, I wrote about Sen. Jon Tester's Forest Jobs and Recreation Act. The act would protect 600,000 acres of Montana wilderness, but it would also mandate the logging of 10,000 acres per year in Montana's national forests. Whatever you think of the specific provisions of the bill, the effort to see it passed is notable for bringing together an unusual coalition of conservation groups and timber companies-entities that have traditionally found themselves at odds over wilderness areas and use restrictions.

LAS CRUCES -- Doña Ana County commissioners on Tuesday decided to back a federal measure that would create 259,000 acres of wilderness in the county.

Commissioners heard from several opponent and supporters of the wilderness area before voting 5-0 in favor of a resolution in support of the Organ Mountains-Desert Peaks Wilderness Act, introduced into Congress last week by New Mexico's senators.

A new conservation project concentrated in Deuel, Grant and Roberts counties received a $1 million grant to help protect unbroken tracts of prairie across the Dakotas and Minnesota.

Prairies Without Borders seeks to protect sections of the Prairie Coteau region, which encompasses more than 1 million acres of native northern tallgrass. The money will go toward buying U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service grassland and wetland easements, with an emphasis on getting easements on large contiguous tracts of native grassland.

More New Mexico wilderness is officially on the table in Washington, D.C. Late last week, Senators Jeff Bingaman and Tom Udall introduced a bill with protections for nearly 400,000 acres of wild lands near Las Cruces.

John Moen, the New Mexico chairman for Quail Unlimited, says sportsmen, conservationists, landowners, businesses, and others with an interest in the area all worked together to compromise and come up with a plan that can be acceptable to everyone.

Protesters in Idaho and all around the country suggest President Barack Obama is waging war on capitalism, gun ownership and even small-town values.

But no one is accusing him of assaulting the traditional resource values of the American West -- not even the Idaho Cattle Association, which was ready for the fight after Obama was elected last November.

The group quickly expressed fears Obama would follow the lead of Bill Clinton and seek new restrictions on public lands grazing and more.

Forty-five years ago this month, President Lyndon B. Johnson sat down in the Rose Garden and signed the Wilderness Act. It established 9.1 million acres of designated wilderness in the U.S.

"A wilderness" the act states, "in contrast with those areas where man and his own works dominate the landscape, is hereby recognized as an area where the earth and its community of life are untrammeled by man, where man himself is a visitor who does not remain."

New Mexico's U.S. senators on Thursday announced a plan to create thousands of acres of federally designated wilderness in Do a Ana County, including protection for the Organ Mountains.

U.S. Sens. Jeff Bingaman and Tom Udall, both D-N.M., introduced a bill that would designate 259,000 acres of land as wilderness, the highest level of federal protection. Also, the bill would place another 100,000 acres into a national conservation area, a type of protection that varies depending on the specific conditions set by Congress.