Wednesday, November 21, 2018 The Nugget Newspaper, Sisters, Oregon
11
Commentary...
Oregon urges Tread lightly and be neighborly
Court to
public lands that belong to fire danger, within a mile of
Jim Cornelius
all of us. At the same time, Sisters.”
we recognize that the wilder-
Zimmerman Butte is as
uphold 112-
There are a lot of people ness experience isn’t exactly safe an area for shooting as
out in the woods these days. enhanced by sharing it with it is possible to designate in
are hiking; some are the multitudes, particularly a National Forest. The deep
year sentence Some
riding mountain bikes; some when too many in the mad- cinder pit features mas-
Editor in Chief
P O RT L A N D ( A P ) _
Oregon is urging the U.S.
Supreme court to uphold the
112-year sentence given to a
man who killed his parents
before fatally shooting two
students and wounding two
dozen others at a high school
20 years ago.
The
Oregonian/
OregonLive reports 36-year-
old Kipland Kinkel filed a
petition in early August to
the nation’s highest court for
a review of his sentence in
the May 1998 shootings in
Springfield, Oregon.
Oregon solicitor general
Benjamin Gutman filed a brief
in response, saying the sen-
tence shouldn’t be overturned
because the Oregon Supreme
Court found it reflected his
“irreparable corruption rather
than the transience of youth.”
Attorneys Thaddeus Betz
and Marsha Levick have
argued their client never got
the chance to demonstrate
that he’s not “permanently
incorrigible.”
are riding horseback; some
are running off-road vehicles;
some are target-shooting. In
winter, some are cross-coun-
try skiing; others are snow-
shoeing or simply playing
in the snow; some are riding
snowmobiles.
With recreation on the
Deschutes National Forest
increasing 15 to 20 percent
over the past three years, the
traffic is getting heavy — and
the potential for conflict rises.
Sheer numbers have an
impact all by themselves.
Our most beautiful areas are
also our most popular, and
they are in very real danger of
being “loved to death.” The
Forest Service announced
last week a draft decision on
limiting access and creating a
permitting system for wilder-
ness areas that are seeing the
highest volume of traffic, and
the heaviest human impact.
There’s something in
Americans that bristles at
being told we can’t go some-
where, at whatever time
we choose, particularly on
dening crowd don’t respect
the grandeur — and fragility
— of what to them is a giant
playground.
The Forest Service seems
to have done a pretty good job
of balancing competing val-
ues — access and experience
— in their plan. They listened
to local input regarding the
desire to retain some sponta-
neity in our plans, holding out
some same-day and next-day
permits. We may not like it
that such a permitting system
is necessary, but hopefully it
will have the desired effect
of enhancing the wilderness
experience and easing the
burden on the land.
Conflicts also arise in the
forest closer to Sisters. Last
week, a letter to the edi-
tor urged the Forest Service
to more aggressively man-
age the shooting area at
Zimmerman Butte, argu-
ing that “corralling shooting
into one location for hours a
day causes noise pollution,
physical harm for people
with PTSD and potential
sive backstops, easy vehicle
access and a wide open area
free of brush. The fire dan-
ger cited in the letter came
not from shooting activity
but apparently from a care-
less fire — a problem any-
where and everywhere in our
forests.
Corralling the activity at
Zimmerman is precisely the
right management choice —
even though those of us who
used to have the place more-
or-less to ourselves most of
the time now have to account
for more shooters on our
range.
Shooting is allowed
anywhere in the National
Forest where it is not spe-
cifically prohibited. Closing
or restricting safe shooting
areas would only disperse
that activity out into the for-
est where it might be consid-
erably less safe.
Most of us engage in one
or more recreational activi-
ties in our forests. Most of
us appreciate some of those
activities more than others.
As more and more people
come to Central Oregon to
“get away from it all,” we’re
going to run up against each
other more frequently in the
forest and on the trail. We all
have to be tolerant and coex-
ist. We all have to be mindful
of others and of the land and
clean up after ourselves.
Tread lightly and be
neighborly. We’re all in this
together.
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