Bush waging a war on parks, forests
boston.com
By T.A. Barron, 8/17/2003
A WAR IS RAGING. It involves lands essential to our nation, and will dramatically affect future
generations. No, I am not speaking of Iraq or Afghanistan. This war is right here: the Bush
administration's radical, all-out attack on America's wilderness and public lands.
What is at stake? These are the lands whose scenery inspired the
song "America the Beautiful." But they are much more than that.
Our national parks, national forests, wildlife refuges, and other public
lands total 623 million acres -- 14 times the size of all six New
England states, or almost six times the size of California. They
constitute a natural engine that cleans our drinking water, purifies
the air, produces medicines, provides resources, and enhances our
quality of life in countless other ways. Most important, these lands
connect Americans directly with the miracle of God's creation.
These natural treasures are also an important part of our heritage.
The idea of a national park was born in America: Yellowstone
became the world's first in 1872. However we define homeland
security, our wilderness and public lands must be at the core of
what we seek to defend.
Not for President Bush and his team, however. Fueled by zealous
anti-environmentalism and corporate special interests, they have
launched what amounts to a sustained and systematic attack on
America's public lands. Instead of honoring the public trust that
requires protecting these national assets for our children and
grandchildren, they have aggressively pushed exploitation by the
mining, timber, oil and gas, and snowmobile industries. Well aware
of the public outcry that such radical policy changes would provoke,
they have pursued this war with stealth and deception.
While Americans are looking at more visible conflicts, this ground
war advances. A few examples:
Right after the 2002 election, the Bush administration decided to
allow a significant increase in the number of snowmobiles roaring
through Yellowstone, despite overwhelming public opposition and
serious pollution. The Bush team is also trying to rip giant holes in a
policy that prohibits road building and commercial logging across
58.5 million acres of roadless lands in our national forests. Recently
Interior Secretary Gale Norton summarily removed any portion of 262
million acres from possible wilderness protection, thereby paving the
way -- literally -- for extractive industries. By renouncing all federal
authority to study or protect wilderness values in these lands, this action removed even the
possibility that future generations might ever choose to conserve them.
These are merely a few of the frontal assaults. Behind the scenes, Bush and company have
forced sweeping changes in public lands management policies, abandoning decades-old
bipartisan approaches in favor of immediate exploitation. They have encouraged Alaska, Utah, and
other states to recognize abandoned trails, burro paths, and even dry washes as public rights of
way across federal lands -- thereby opening up the possibility that trucks could lay down
pavement through national parks, wildlife refuges, and wilderness areas.
They have removed protections from America's wetlands and small waterways. They outright
revoked the longstanding Wilderness Inventory handbook, which guides land managers in
assessing appropriate uses of potential wilderness.
Aware of the radical extent of these changes, the Bush team has worked hard to hide them from
public view. Norton's action affecting 262 million acres, for example, came after no public
hearings, open debate, or congressional oversight. It was not even announced on the Interior
Department's web site. It was simply revealed in a legal settlement with Utah and released on a
Friday night, after reporters' 5 o'clock deadlines, just after Congress had left for spring recess.
Such stealth attacks have enabled Bush and company to radically alter environmental policies
without changing the laws or risking negative public outcry. Their methods include inviting lawsuits
that could weaken protections, then settling them out of court; simply burying potentially
embarrassing information such as the files on Vice President Dick Cheney's energy commission;
and quietly dropping enforcement of key environmental policies.
And with a flair for public relations, they have cynically named new policies: The Healthy Forests
initiative aggressively promotes logging in the national forests, and the Clear Skies program is
really a major rollback of Clean Air Act protections.
As a nation, we are what we save. The value of America's public lands cannot be measured in
board feet, tons of coal, or sales of all-terrain vehicles. Once wilderness is lost, it is lost forever.
And the biggest losers will be generations of Americans yet unborn.
Bush's war on our public lands is unwise, unjustified, and unprecedented. It is tantamount to an
assault on the national treasury. But defending our public lands does more than protect valuable
physical assets: It protects our homeland security of the soul.
T. A. Barron is an author from Colorado.
© Copyright 2003 Globe Newspaper Company. |
