December Letters

My backpacking experiences in Gates of the Artic, Wrangell-St. Elias, and the Artic National Wildlife Refuge are so much more intense than my experiences in the smaller, more constrained Wilderness Areas of the lower 48. I use every survival skill (and then some!) when experiencing big chunks of truly wild country. There, I am keenly aware of my place in the food chain and my attention is riveted. The unique experience of responding to a truly large, wild landscape in a manner conducive to survival (albeit with matches, modern food, clothing and gear) is intrinsically instructive. I have done some really stupid things in the backcountry that could have killed me. I learn. My potential for learning directly correlates to my potential to succumb, nicely illustrating the natural selection process.

I probably should be (but must admit that I usually am not) as compelled to adhere to that level of awareness in Wilderness Areas that have more human intrusion. Not having to make such critical decisions in less wild landscapes, I tend to blithely hike the trail, anthropocentric thoughts coursing through my brain. I appreciate the aesthetics of the area, enjoying my sense of well being as I “recreate”. Thus, the civilizing of the landscape has a civilizing effect on me. I learn less about my immediate environment and become less self-reliant, more complacent.

The extinction of wild experience results in a dumbing down of human behavior. Without the challenge of truly wild landscapes, we cannot evolve our wild animal selves to our full potential. We accept and pass along our dumbed down wildness to our families, friends and companions in the wild. Wilderness becomes little more than refuge from modern life, defined more by what it is not than by what it is. The loss to the planet of wild human animals is incalculable, as it precedes the loss of non-human wild life. We’ve been sucked into a vicious cycle of diminished landscapes; this shapes diminished humans who further erode habitat ensuring less capable humans, and so it goes until we all are extinct.

The recent Bush/Cheney administration’s Draft National Park Service (NPS) National Wilderness Policy Revisions are an example of degrading Wilderness values. This draft defines public use as the primary purpose of Wilderness emphasizing visitor safety as a major goal of Wilderness management, allowing development to facilitate visitor use. The NPS oversees more Wilderness acreage than any other public lands agency. Besides the obvious loss to wild flora and fauna, by not preserving the Wilderness character we forfeit the valuable tools of wild human thought and behavior, making us about as useful as garbage habituated bears. We’ve already seen how civilized thought and behavior play out but we won’t ever know a different result if we can’t tap into a truly wild reality.

Please consider reviewing the draft policies at: http://parkplanning.nps.gov/document.cfm?projectId=13746&documentID=12825 and send your comments to: waso_policy@nps.gov, or, Bernard Fagan, Room 7252, National Park Service, Office of Policy, 1849 C Street NW, Washington, D.C. 20240

If you comment online through links at the above website address you may not be able to retain a copy of your comments. Also, consider that many online comments for the Gallatin National Forest Travel Plan were “lost”. Ask that your comments be made part of the public record.

Comments due: February 18, 2006 (e-mailed by midnight MST, or postmarked that day)

Points to consider while commenting:

--Preserve the Wilderness Character of each area in the National Wilderness Preservation System, as required by the Wilderness Act of 1964.

--Emphasize appropriate types and amounts of public use allowable in Wilderness to the extent that they are compatible with protection of an area’s Wilderness Character, particularly the area’s undeveloped, non-motorized qualities and Wilderness solitude.

--The Wilderness Act explicitly requires the Secretary of the Interior to forward recommendations to the President re: both the suitability and non-suitability for all areas that have undergone the formal Wilderness Review Process. Changing this policy to modify the current Wilderness Review Process as proposed in the draft is illegal.

--The Wilderness Act intended Wilderness to remain ”in contrast” to developed landscapes. It should not be managed and developed to promote visitor safety.

--It is not the National Park Service’s job to promote and market Wilderness as a recreational playground but to preserve Wilderness Character and develop public awareness and appreciation for the qualities and values that make Wilderness unique and different from non-wilderness national park backcountry.

--No permanent NPS caches and cabins. They are unnecessary and degrade the Wilderness Character, intruding on the undeveloped remote qualities that make Wilderness unique.

--Provide for a standard Minimum Requirement/Minimum Tool Analysis subject to public review and comment, to ensure consistency, accountability and public understanding in assessing the need and appropriateness for various administrative activities in designated Wilderness. The current NPS policy allows each park superintendent to devise her or his own.

--The proposed policies define the purpose of Wilderness monitoring as “ensuring that the public purposes (uses) of Wilderness are being met.” The NPS should be monitoring Wilderness to preserve Wilderness Character and values, not to assure sufficient public use.

--Designate national park backcountry roadless areas as Wilderness under the Wilderness Act of 1964.

Stephen Ray