Wilderness News

In my teenage years my parents decided to move to Los Angeles. Having seen the beautiful beaches of Santa Barbara and the luscious trees of Beverly Hills in soap operas, I was expecting to be blown away by California's nature.

Instead, I was horrified when I was met by a gray and dusty city. Since that time I have been trying to find a place where I could escape the noise and dirt of streets but still be close to my family and friends.

As gas prices continue to rise, Colorado has seen a renewed effort to open our state's pristine wilderness to energy development from corporate interests. Increasing our oil and gas drilling in the state is merely a band-aid for the much graver, more long-term issue of our dependence on non-renewable energy resources. What is more, the wilderness, the defining characteristic of our great state, stands only to lose from increased development.

A proposal before Congress would designate another 47,000 acres of the Monongahela National Forest with special "wilderness" protection.

The different areas have been researched, adjusted, subject to public comment and negotiation. There has been input from state and federal forestry officials, hikers, hunters, fishers and local economic development groups during the last two years. Congress could not ask for a more reasoned and vetted proposal.

Proposals for six new wilderness areas are on their way to the House floor after the Natural Resources Committee easily cleared them yesterday.

The bills, all cleared by voice vote, were replaced with substitutes that incorporated several technical changes at the behest of federal officials and the bills' different stakeholders. The substitute version of Rep. Tom Udall's (D-N.M.) H.R. 2632, for example, reduces the amount of land proposed for the Sabinoso Wilderness Area in northeast New Mexico from 19,880 acres to 15,995 acres.

Karl Van Calcar's passion is elk hunting, and he likes to do it the hard way: by longbow. Bowhunting requires mimicking elk calls well enough to convince a bull elk he is being challenged for his herd of females. When Mr. Van Calcar is convincing, and everything goes right, the reward is an angry, 700-pound animal with massive antlers looking for a fight.

I have very recently hiked with several others in the area in question in Leo W. Banks' article without fear of the illegal activity he dwells on in his alarmist story.

It is beautiful country, and we are grateful we can hike it. We support the wilderness designation, and see it as an issue of land use rather than about criminal activity.

At the end of Banks' article, Edith Lowell sums it up best when she says we need border security. Instead of fighting against the designation, my opinion is that all of us should focus on demanding secure borders now.

Don Gfroerer

After reading the piece in the Tucson Weekly regarding the Tumacacori Highlands Wilderness legislation ("Nature Vs. Security," May 1), my reaction was surprise at the one-sided presentation and the paucity of information actually given in the article. The author was apparently happy to just sit down with opponents of the plan and put all his faith in their remarks. The worthiness of the area as wilderness was not examined.

I write in response to the front-page article by Leo W. Banks in a recent issue of the Tucson Weekly that expresses concern that declaring the Tumacacori Highlands as a national wilderness area will lead to more marijuana traffic.

Stopping marijuana traffic is not done by targeting the environment. Remove the criminal penalties on its sale and use, and the traffic will stop. It is not right in a democratic society to make it a crime if adults use marijuana by their own free choice.

U.S. Sens. Carl Levin and Debbie Stabenow introduced the Beaver Basin Wilderness Act Wednesday, which would permanently designate 11,739 acres as wilderness at Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore.

The National Park Service has been working to finalize the establishment of the Beaver Basin Wilderness Area, which is one component of the park's General Management Plan completed in 2004, after five years of planning and public involvement.

A bill to protect additional Riverside County forests, mountains and rivers was passed by the U.S. House's Natural Resources Committee today, paving the way for a floor vote in the full House.

Sponsored by Rep. Mary Bono Mack, R-Palm Springs, the bill would permanently protect four new wilderness areas, expand six existing protected areas, and add additional protected land to the Santa Rosa and San Jacinto Mountains National Monument. It would include 190,000 acres of wilderness in areas including Joshua Tree National Park.