Conservationists should support the
Owyhee Initiative, the compromise management plan for more than 3
million wild acres of southwestern Idaho (HCN, 12/8/04: Riding the
middle path). If the wildly divergent interest groups that
developed the initiative can hold together, Idaho Republican Sen.
Mike Crapo promises to shepherd the plan through Congress this
year.
Idaho’s Owyhee country, bigger than several
states, is the largest roadless area in the Lower 48. But its wild
character is bit-by-bit eroding away, a process being accelerated
by pro-development decisions of Bush administration land managers.
The two-year Owyhee Initiative has produced a remarkable
compromise, aligning cattlemen and sagebrush rebels with the Idaho
Conservation League, the Sierra Club, The Nature Conservancy and
The Wilderness Society. The conservation community’s
negotiators are dedicated, knowledgeable professionals representing
virtually all of the mainstream conservation organizations active
in Idaho. Neither they, nor their counterparts representing local
landowners and the ORV community, sold their principles down the
river.
The result is a compromise. Still, from a purely
conservationist’s perspective, it looks to be a very good
deal — far better, in fact, than what would have emerged had
an Owyhee National Monument been created in the final days of the
Clinton administration. Crapo’s bill should create 500,000
acres of new statutory wilderness, including 40,000 acres of
cattle-free range land, and a mechanism for buying out additional
grazing permits on other BLM land in the future. It will designate
at least 300 miles of new wild and scenic rivers, encompassing all
of the spectacular Owyhee Canyonland river complex. Most
importantly, it restricts ORV usage to designated roads and trails,
everywhere on public land in all 5 million acres of Owyhee County,
a precedent-setting first for our scenic Western state.
While the compromise will release some existing wilderness study
areas to multiple-use management, the best and wildest of the
Owyhees receives permanent protection. For the first time,
professional conservationists will be given a permanent “seat at
the table” and a voice equal to local ranchers in a new
citizens’ group set up to advise the Bureau of Land
Management on future land management and resource-use decisions.
Never before in my conservative state have environmental interests
been given this kind of formal, officially sanctioned access.
While not every wild acre is protected, nor every
existing illegal ORV trail closed, the proposed compromise looks to
be balanced, fair and deserving of conservation community support.
Let’s unite to ensure it passes through Congress intact.
Walt Minnick
Boise,
Idaho
This article appeared in the print edition of the magazine with the headline Take the initiative.
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