Wilderness:
Managing public forests,
more than acres, dollars
E G. WHITE-SWIFT
Of the Emerald
Consider an acre of wild land
The acre supports hundreds of different
species of plants and such small animals as
insects, snails and worms It also may sup
port a few birds and small mammals and.
together with several other acres, a variety
of larger wildlife forms.
Oregon has 61.6 million acres, of which
some 34.1 million acres (55 per cent) are
managed by state and federal agencies
The remaining 45 per cent of Oregon s ac
reage is owned by private parties or local
governments.
Much of the private lands have been
modified or altered from their ongmal condi
tion. vhich was largely old-growth forests or
climax grasslands. Wayne Davis, author of
"Man's War on Wildlife," explains what has
occurred on most of our private lands not
used for domestic or urban centers.
"To optimize food production," said
Davis, "man clears the land and plants it in
a single crop species. Poisonous pesticide
sprays eliminate other plants and much of
the invertebrate animal life, making the land
unsuitable as habitat for its original fauna
"To increase harvesting efficiency, tim
berlands are often dearcut and the land
stripped of all vegetation," he continues If
funds are available, the land may be re
planted but to optimize timber production,
replanting is often confined to a single
species of fast-growing conifer Thus a di
versified forest of dozens of species of
trees and plants, including many of no
commercial value, is replaced by a sylvic
monoculture The habitat of many wildlife
species is destroyed
Due to the cost of buying land and paying
taxes, it is reasonable to expect pnvate
landowners to develop each acre. As more
private lands are lost to urbanization and
high intensity resource production, the
pressure to utilize government managed
land increases
"The economics of monoculture may be
satisfying," states Mo Rozee of the
University's environmental study center,
"but the cost to our natural biotic diversity is
devasting When we think of Oregon, we
visualize all the different trees, plants, wild
life and landscape Without realizing what it
is, we are responding to the natural diver
sity which unfortunately is under incredible
pressures to become economic monocul
tures
Although public lands generally are of
lower value per acre than privately owned
lands, in the aggregate they contain
enormous values In essential resources
The United States Forest Sorvice (USFS)
and the Bureau of Land fylanagement
(BLM) each manage about 25 per cent of
Oregon, 15 4 million acros and 15 7 million
acres respectively These lands are impor
tant to the future of Oregon s economy,
timber industry, recreation and tourism
They are essential for the survival of many
of our native wildlife, plants and the ecosys
terns in which they live
Both agencies are currently involved in a
land-use planning process that will deter
mine the diversity of over 50 per cent of
Oregon As required by the National En
vironmental Policy Act of 1969, both agon
cies are submitting environmental impact
statements covering their proposed ac
tions
"On a forest by forest basis, stales a
forest service official, we issue a drafl on
vironmental statement listing proposed al
Final Oregon wildlands in danger
By E G WHITE-SWIFT
Of the Emerald
It's now or never for Oregon's de facto
wilderness areas.
Once roads are built into a pristine area,
its chance to become a wilderness area is
lost forever And forever is a pretty long
time.
Sen Frank Church, D-ldaho, hascharac
tenzed de facto wilderness' as:
Public land which has remained road
less and undeveloped through no special
program or protection, but merely because
it has been too remote or too low in com
mercial value to be developed And be
cause it has no special protection, it is in the
category of land which is most in danger of
losing its wilderness character before
thorough review and consideration can be
given
In 1972 and 1973, the Forest Service
conducted a basic inventory of the remain
ing roadless and undeveloped areas in the
western national forests. This Roadless
Area Review and Evaluation (FtARE) iden
tified 1,400 roadless areas.
The Forest Service selected 274 road
r
less areas for special wilderness study The
remaining roadless areas were to be avail
able for other development, with a minimum
of review However, after a successful law
suit brought by the Sierra Club, further de
velopment in roadless areas was prevented
until individual forests completed environ
mental impact statements covering use on
the forests.
The land use plans for the forests, similar
to the plan the Willamette National Forest
just released, specify proposed actions in
de facto wilderness areas If a development
or logging option is chosen for a roadless
area, the Forest Service notifies Congress
If Congress does not act within 90 days, a
roadless area can be logged or at least the
timber may be sold
Only Congress can establish wilderness
areas, but the Forest Service can recom
mend roadless areas for wilderness study
The Willamette Plan considered 19 road
less areas totaling 290,000 acres, but re
commended none of them for wilderness
study.
More than 50,000 acres were recom
mended for administrative protection and
designated undeveloped roadless recrea
tion (UDR). including parts ol French Pole
and the adjacent Walker Creek and Robel
Creek The irony ol the French-Walker
Rebel Creek UDR is that all ol the areas
were originally part ol the Three Sisters
Primitive Area, also an administrative
rather than legislative designation
Ol the three largest roadless areas con
sidered by forest officials for the Willamette
Plan, only a portion (7.800 acres) ol the
24,000 acre Little Santiam roadless area
was recommended lor the UDR classitica
tion The 100,000 acre Maiden Peak road
less area near Waldo Lake was evenly split
between timber harvest operations and re
creation designations
About 23,000 acres of the 24,500 acre
Middle Santiam roadless area were prop
osed for general timber harvest operations
Unless Congress acts to set aside the
Middle Santiam as wilderness, or unless
Oregonians write Congress or the Gover
nor to protest the proposed roads in the tinal
wild land in Oregon, it will all be logged
As the conductor said, this is the last last
call" for the last tram to wilderness II you
don't get on now, it won t be there to get on
later
Drawing by Sieve Serui&irorri
ocanons ana anornauves. wen a ooiermi
iation ol the impacts ot each action The
iltornativos propose a spectrum ot alloca
ions to timber production, recreational de
relopment, wilder noss study aroas or areas
■oservod exclusively lor wildlile manage
nent
Public hearings are then held in com
•nunitios near the lores! issuing a state
nont Comments on tho statements are
also roquostod Irom environmental agen
cies, conservation organizations, industry
representatives and ot interested individu
als around the state After the mlorval lor
public mpul, a Inal environmental impact
statement is released stating tho preferred
alternative ol action
The lores! service plans to have all its
land-use proposals finished within a yoar
and a tutlf Tho BLM is |ust in tho beginning
stages ol its land use planning and does
not expect to bo done tor several years
The rosults ol the land-use process will
dotormmo tho allowable timber cut on led
oral lands The timber industry would like to
see allocations lavorable lor a higher an
nual cut Irom the lorests They stress the
importance ot the timber reserves on led
eral lands to Oregon s economy
Retaining the btotic diversity native to
Oregon is the concern ot many conser
vationists This land use process will de
termine tho amount ot natural areas that we
will have stales Joe Walacki Allocating
areas lor wilderness study is to insure that
those areas will otter habitat diversity tor
plants and wildlife The non-wtlderne^.
study aroas will most likety be developed Jj
limber utilization or lor high-intensity recto
anon
walack-, the northwest representative ot
the Wilderness Society, believes that Wil
derness stands as a baseline against which
we eslimale progress ot loss in our defor
mation ol natural landscapes in managed
areas It stands as a reservoir and refuge
for those wild plants and animals difficult to
lit into a managed landscape II stands as a
sanctuary lor poople seeking to keep con
tact with pnmitive values
One plan to incorporate biotic diversity
into the land use process is ottored by con
servatiomst Raymond Dasmann It is a reg
lonal approach that would involve the de
velopmont in each region or dislnct ol a
core area representative of the unchanged
biota of the region a wilderness or legis
latively protected natural area __
Surrounding such an undisturbed
and buttering it Irom the more mtensiverr
used lands would be wild areas, stales
Dasmann. used lor low-intensity recrea
tion These lands could benefit and com
bine fisheries, some livestock forage and
small-scale timber and wildlite resource!.
According to his plan, those areas would
be surrounded by lands used intensively lor
farming, pasture management or intensive
wood management Beyond these areas
would be the urban and industrial centers
with intensive mass recreation areas near
the cities His plan would lower enorgy con
sumption while preserving critical biotic di
versity in tho core areas
Presently in Oregon there are two major
types ol natural core areas There are Hie
915,000 acres ot established wilderness
areas protected by the 1964 Wilderness
Act There are also about four million acres
of roadless and unlogged ' de laclo wilder
ness lands managed by the federal agen
cies These areas are candidates tor wil
derness study designations in the land
planning process Any future wilderness
areas in Oregon will have to come oul of
these areas that are at present unpro
tected
The established wilderness areas are
mostly alpine and sub-alpine ecosystem:;
stales Kurl Kutay ot the Sierra Club Most
ol it is ice and rock, with marginal amounis
ol timber The existing wilderness system in
Oregon is not highly diverse, and does nol
truly represent the biotic diversity of Oregon
as a whole
"On the other hand, the roadless areas
that make up the de tacto wilderness lands
include lower elevation lands, marginal
timber production lands, and sites difficult
to reach, according to Kutay "II is these
(Continued )n Pane 9)