When Montana Democratic Sen. Jon Tester introduced his Forest Jobs
and Recreation Act last July, he did something that is all too uncommon
in today’s political world. He kept a promise.
He’d told conservationists, loggers and recreationists that if they
could reach agreement on contentious issues involving public lands —
including wilderness designation, deciding where logging and habitat
restoration is appropriate, and, most importantly, getting popular
support for their ideas — he’d introduce a bill to help implement
their vision.
That’s exactly what this landmark legislation does. It takes the
hard work of people in the Yaak country of northwest Montana and in the
Seeley Lake and Blackfoot regions north of Missoula, and of
recreationists and those who make a living around the sprawling
Beaverhead-Deerlodge National Forest in the southwest corner of the
state, and it packages it into a measure that:
- Protects 670,000 acres of some of Montana’s finest wildlands as
wilderness and another 300,000 acres as national recreation areas; - Aids
local mills by directing the Forest Service to do some sort of
mechanical removal of vegetation for 10 years, through commercial
logging, thinning or post and pole sales, for instance. This would
affect extremely small portions of the Kootenai and
Beaverhead-Deerlodge national forests — about one-quarter of 1 percent
in one year. The value of the trees removed will be re-invested in the
forest — used to help restore damaged habitats.
The bill also creates new partnerships with the Forest Service by
ensuring that the agency works first with citizen groups on where and
how these restoration projects will take place.
Is the Tester bill a good bill? Well, polling indicates that more
than two-thirds of Montanans think so. Montanans are especially pleased
because it came about because people with conflicting interests worked
out their differences. Sherm Anderson, who owns a mill in Deer Lodge
and helped develop some of the ideas in the measure, is a leading
timber spokesman. He once opposed wilderness designations. But not now.
Sherm regularly remarks to me: “Sometimes I can’t believe how far we’ve
both come.” I tell him, it’s about time.
Of course, the bill has its detractors. Some of them seem threatened
by the prospect of people working together. They fear that cooperation
will dilute the shouting and intimidation-by-litigation coming from the
polar extremes in debates over land management.
Especially disappointing has been the small band of
environmentalists who complain that the bill was developed secretly and
they were shut out. Hardly. The bill results from ideas discussed for
nearly four years in hundreds of face-to-face meetings, including with
local government, conservationists, recreationists, ranchers and others.
As a proponent, I have been at many of these meetings. We explained
our ideas and sought advice for improvement. Sen. Tester did the same,
and he changed the bill based on what he heard. And that effort
continues. The proposals embodied in the measure have been in the
press, on the Web and detailed in publications for nearly four years.
They certainly haven’t been kept secret.
The only people “shut out” of the process were those who early on
chose to be excluded. They attacked Sen. Tester, his bill and its
supporters in blogs, e-mails, the media and in name-calling newspaper
ads. Their message has been clear: They will never support legislation
that accommodates timber interests or that runs counter to their
self-righteous view of how public lands should be managed. Their
approach can best be seen in their years of redundant legal challenges
to the Forest Service.
The only contribution these opponents have offered is invective and
“our way or no way” indignation. The environmental critics have
lectured and patronized us, but they have never contacted me or other
proponents and offered to sit down and explore common ground. I believe
that’s because they don’t accept the basic premise of this bill:
Everybody must get something.
Meanwhile, many others have had their say. That’s why Trout
Unlimited, the Montana Wilderness Association and the National Wildlife
Federation — which collectively have nearly 15,000 grassroots members
in Montana — have been joined by the Greater Yellowstone Coalition,
The Wilderness Society, American Rivers, the Theodore Roosevelt
Conservation Partnership and other conservation interests in supporting
the bill. That’s why rural and urban county commissions support the
measure, as do timber associations, ranchers, motorized and
non-motorized recreationists, unions (including Montana’s largest),
business people, legislators, Montana Democrats Gov. Brian Schweitzer
and Sen. Max Baucus and former Montana Republican Gov. Marc Racicot.
The support for the Forest Jobs and Recreation Act is unprecedented.
All it took was open-mindedness and civility. Now what’s wrong with
that?
Bruce Farling is a contributor to Writers on the Range, a service of High Country News (hcn.org). He is executive director of Montana Trout Unlimited in Missoula, Montana.
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