Advocates for wilderness designation for some of North Dakota's most remote unspoiled lands have come up with a thoughtful and balanced proposal. Indeed, it might be too modest, too timid. The plan from the North Dakota Wilderness Coalition should be examined by the governor and congressional delegation with the ultimate goal of setting aside as wilderness 62,300 acres of the state's western national grasslands and another 5,410 acres in the Sheyenne grasslands in the southeast.

North Dakota has very few acres in wilderness: one-tenth of 1 percent of the state's land area in two wildlife refuges and the two units of Theodore Roosevelt National Park. More importantly, the acres that qualify for wilderness have been dwindling for years because of energy development and other incursions, such as roads. The longer it takes to preserve wild lands, the more will be lost to development. In the 1970s, about 500,000 acres of grasslands qualified for wilderness; today fewer than 100,000 acres qualify under federal wilderness designation criteria.

The new proposal would not lock up huge tracts of land to oil and gas development. Ninety-six percent of the grasslands would remain open for roads and the activities associated with exploration and drilling. The wilderness proposal constitutes only 4 percent of the grasslands.

It is, by any reasonable definition, a modest proposal. Yet, the governor and congressional delegation seem reluctant to even talk about it, let alone support it. Their bipartisan hesitation is shortsighted. It could be interpreted they are so enamored with the relatively short-term gains to be had from energy, they don't see the value of protecting the state's wild lands for a future that will span 50 years or 100 years. Once lost, however, wilderness cannot be regained.

If ever there was a time to preserve and protect the state's last remaining wild lands, it's now. The pressures of all kinds of development whether energy, ranching or high-impact recreation have never been greater. The threat to the state's few pristine environments should be blunted with federal wilderness protection. No elected official a governor or a member of Congress should stand in the way of protecting for the ages what little remains of North Dakota's extraordinary natural heritage.