Sally Mauk: For new wilderness to succeed, next generation must have interest

By SALLY MAUK
for the Missoulian | Posted: Friday, July 16, 2010 9:30 pm

In another life, I was a wilderness ranger, and to this day
there's a certain trail in a certain wilderness where I am most at
peace with myself and with the world.

After walking the first mile, the torrent of life's minutiae
flooding my brain has slowed to a trickle. By the second mile, I'm
finally starting to notice the lacy light sneaking through the
hemlock and the faint, sweet whiff of wild ginger. And by the time
I take a very quick dip in the melted-ice cube waters of the small
alpine lake that is the reward of the final, steep switchback, I am
a much better person than I was at the trailhead.

It's Chris Brown's job to make sure I have this special,
redemptive place to visit when I need to. Brown is director of
wilderness and wild and scenic rivers for the U.S. Forest Service,
the guy in charge of the 36 million acres of wilderness out of the
193 million acres of national forest.

"My job is to keep wilderness wild and keep wild and scenic
rivers, free-flowing," he said.

It's a big job.

Brown was in Missoula recently to talk about the challenges
facing America's wilderness areas, and they are many - everything
from film crews wanting access to shoot a documentary, to miners
wanting to dig out copper and silver or ranchers wanting to expand
their grazing leases. Keeping the promise of the 1964 Wilderness
Act, to preserve these lands "untrammeled" can seem quaint in a
world increasingly separated from wildness. When more and more
people can't stand being out of cell phone range for one minute,
the notion of being out of flush toilet range seems even more
untenable.

Yet, Brown is not discouraged that the current fan base needed
to "keep wilderness wild" is immediately shrinking.

"When you look at the kind of support in Congress that
wilderness designation is getting, when you look at the kind of use
we're getting in our wilderness areas, we feel there is still a
strong national consensus in favor of wilderness," said Brown.

He points out that 2 million acres of new wilderness were added
in nine states in 2009. Montana was not one of those states. The
last time a Montana wilderness bill passed Congress was in 1988. It
would have added 5 million new acres of wilderness, but was vetoed
by President Ronald Reagan - a veto widely seen as based not on the
merits of the legislation, but as a political favor to help elect a
Republican senator.

***

Sen. Jon Tester's Forest Jobs and Recreation
Act would create a much less ambitious 600,000 acres of new
wilderness, but that bill is languishing in a committee, and Tester
is not promising it will pass the Senate before this session
ends.

Brown admits getting new wilderness "is a somewhat torturous
process," but he says with 17 wilderness bills pending, "and the
fact that each and every year congress is adding wilderness," it's
not impossible.

Brown's biggest worry is the next generation's interest in
wilderness and the outdoors in general.

The seminal book "Last Child in the Woods" convincingly details
the growing alienation children have with the natural world. Brown
says it's a huge concern not just for wilderness stewards like
himself, but for the entire Forest Service:

"Getting kids out is a huge challenge for the nation. ... And
for our future constituency, it's absolutely essential."

Soon after you read this, I'll be taking my grand-niece and two
grand-nephews from Kansas on that certain trail in a certain
wilderness, for their first wilderness experience. If they find it
more scary than wondrous - or worse, more boring - then Brown's
successors are going to have their hands full keeping wilderness
wild, and wild and scenic rivers flowing freely.

I'm betting on the kids. We just need to get them to the
trailhead.

Sally Mauk is news director at KUFM, Montana Public Radio. Her
column appears twice monthly in the Missoulian. She can be reached
at (406) 243-4075 or by e-mail at sally.mauk@umontana.edu.