Salt Lake City environmentalist Dick Carter is at it
again, this time founding a new nonprofit, the High Uintas
Preservation Council. After the Utah Wilderness Association – the
group that tried to forge a compromise in the state’s wilderness
debate – closed shop last spring, Carter took a few months off to
hike. But the vacation didn’t last long before he decided a new
citizens’ group was needed to protect the Uinta mountains in
northeast Utah. “I’m probably too old and too out-of-step to do it
again,” Carter says, “but I’m going to try.” The High Uinta region
near the Wyoming border is little-known compared to southern Utah’s
canyon country, but it has become Salt Lake City’s weekend
playground. Encompassing the largest designated wilderness in Utah
and several adjacent national forests, the area is an important
ecological link between the northern and southern Rockies, says
Carter. These days it’s threatened by the encroaching pressures of
timber havesting, oil and gas drilling, grazing and increasing
recreational use. Carter says one of his first projects is opposing
the Forest Service’s introduction of non-native mountain goats to
the Uintas. “We all love mountain goats,” he says, “but they no
more belong in Utah than camels do.” So far, the council consists
of Carter and six board members, including UWA co-founder Margaret
Pettis. For more information contact Dick Carter, P.O. Box 72,
Hyrum, Utah 84319 (801/245-6747).
* Katie
Fesus
This article appeared in the print edition of the magazine with the headline The High Uintas need help.
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