As a Montanan, I feel lucky to live in a state where everyone is a neighbor and no one is too busy to lend a hand. As a Montanan deeply committed to conservation, I am also lucky to live in a state that not only has spectacular wildlands, but also has a legacy of protecting those wild places.
Sadly, for the past two decades, both our tradition of cooperation and our legacy of wildland protection have been at a stalemate due to conflicts over forest management.
With each year, conflict has grown more heated and more divisive, our forests have grown redder and Montanan's wildlands continue to be unprotected.
For the last couple years, local community groups have been trying to bridge the gap on conflicts over public lands management. These local collaborative efforts have been unceasing and are producing solutions that work for everyone—everyone, that is, who is willing to move beyond gridlock.
Now, Sen. Jon Tester has introduced legislation that Montanans of all stripes — loggers, conservationists, sportsmen, mountain bikers, and motorized users — can support.
Sen. Tester and the Forest Jobs and Recreation Act have brought Montana to a place where we can be neighbors again, a place where all of Montana's future generations will be able to enjoy our magnificent wildlands as they now stand.
This bill, however, has not been met without protest. One critic, Paul Edwards, brings up some points that I feel obligated to address.
First, Paul refers to Sen. Tester's bill as a "bailout" whose effects would be "negligible."
In an era that will be remembered for its economic instability and high unemployment rate, legislation that will secure jobs and create even more speaks for itself.
Additionally, the effect that these jobs will have on survival of rural economies is anything but negligible. Hundreds and hundreds of Montana's families rely on timber industry jobs.
We are not talking simply about numbers or facts on a piece of paper; we are talking about real families and communities. The
livelihoods of our Montana neighbors are anything but negligible.
As far as the integrity of the conservation component of this bill, I have no doubt that it continues in the legacy that leaders like Lee Metcalf could support.
That's why some of Montana's leading wilderness advocates, such as former U.S. Rep. Pat Williams, strongly support the bill.
What we are gaining from this bill far outweighs anything that another 25 years of empty gridlock could give us.
Nearly 700,000 acres will be protected — more than half the size of Montana's first designated wilderness, the Bob Marshall. These landscapes will forever stand as they do today.
With our foresight, future generations of Montanans will experience the same beauty, grandeur and solitude that we enjoy today.
Paul is right about one thing: In Montana, and in the West for that matter, we hold certain mythologies.
One of these is the idea that there exists boundless, untamed, undeveloped, and untouched land. The land, the value of which
stretches far beyond the symbolic, helps us define who we are as Montanans and why we live in such a place.
Montana is home to magnificent landscapes and wild open spaces. But it's not boundless, and we must not take it for granted. These landscapes will not be the pristine wildlands they are today unless we protect them.
The Forest Jobs and Recreation Act grasps the spirit of what Montanans value most: working together neighbor to neighbor to protect both the economic viability of rural communities and our treasured wild places.
How lucky we are!
Gerry Jennings is the current president of the Montana Wilderness Association Island Range Chapter.