ESSAY - Aug.16
, 2004
'Conservation'
strategy is a wolf in sheep’s clothing
by Chris Wood
One of our nation’s more dubious political practices is the
tendency to cloak questionable — even harmful — environmental
policies in the rhetoric of conservation. Consider the debatable environmental
merits of the current administration’s "Clear Skies"
and "Healthy Forest" initiatives, two policies that many
argue weaken existing protections for air, water and forests.
This month, the Bush administration let loose its biggest environmental
whopper yet. In announcing the new "Roadless Area Conservation"
policy, the administration removed 58.5 million acres of publicly
owned forest from federal protections against the road-building and
timber-cutting practices that have ecologically unraveled so many
of our public lands.
"Our actions today advance the Bush administration’s commitment
to cooperatively conserving roadless areas," Agriculture Secretary
Ann Veneman said in announcing the plan, which calls for greater state
oversight of these lands.
This clever use of euphemism to describe policies harmful to air,
water and land represents a calculated strategy to polarize the environment
as an issue among voters. As always, most Americans are busy trying
to make ends meet, and now, along with the economy, their concerns
center on national security and terrorism, far more so than on nature.
For the past 20 years, poll after poll has depicted voters as sympathetic
to environmental issues, but today, when asked to discern the reality
that’s somewhere between the Bush administration’s environmental
double-speak and the often hyperbolic response of environmental groups,
most people throw up their hands in confusion. Then they tune out.
Yet, for one large constituency — whose interests it claims
to safeguard — this administration may now have gone too far.
More than 55 million Americans hunt and fish. As a constituency, hunters
and anglers are not prone to proclaim that the sky is falling every
time the administration launches another policy initiative. Hunters
and anglers are more likely to view state and federal agencies as
partners than as adversaries. Working together with agency managers,
such groups as Trout Unlimited donate hundreds of thousands of hours
of volunteer labor to clean up streams and repair degraded watersheds
on public lands across America. Bush on roadless areas. Jack Ohman
Hunters and anglers do so in part because they know that the opportunity
to enjoy our nation’s shared outdoors is constantly threatened.
Every day in the United States, more than 8,700 acres of forest, field,
wetlands and open space are lost to development and urbanization.
When you consider that more and more private land is posted off-limits
to hunting and fishing, you begin to see why hunters and anglers think
the protection of wildlife and fish habitat on public lands is so
important.
Hunters and anglers also know that the last, best wildlife and fish
habitat on the public lands is in our national forests’ roadless
areas. But now, as a result of the administration’s recent action,
these areas are vulnerable to development. Consider the fish and wildlife
values of roadless areas in Idaho, the backdrop for the announcement
of the new roadless policy. Idaho’s roadless areas:
Comprise 75 percent of the remaining habitat for endangered chinook
salmon and steelhead;
Harbor nearly 60 percent of the remaining habitat for the Idaho state
fish, the westslope cutthroat trout;
Yield the largest animals and provide the longest hunting seasons
for deer and elk.
Even as Secretary Veneman pledged her commitment to "maintain
the undeveloped character of the most pristine areas of the National
Forest System," plans are proceeding for roadless-area timber
sales in Alaska and Oregon, including the largest timber sale in Forest
Service history in southern Oregon. New roads are planned in roadless
areas for oil and gas development in Colorado and Wyoming.
For too long, both political parties have either ignored or taken
for granted the interests of the millions of Americans who hunt and
fish. No amount of double-talk, however, can mask the vital importance
of roadless areas to fish, wildlife and water resources. And even
the cleverest use of euphemism cannot disguise the truth about the
Bush administration’s actions regarding roadless area "conservation."
Actions speak louder than words. Chris Wood was a policy advisor to Forest Service
Chief Mike Dombeck during the Clinton administration; he is now vice
president for conservation at Trout Unlimited in Arlington, Va.
