Autumn Equinox 2007, Volume 12 #3

Tucked away in the northwestern corner of Pennsylvania is the state’s only national forest, the Allegheny National Forest. At 513,000 acres, the Allegheny is home to the largest old growth forest in the east between the Adirondacks and Smoky Mountains, two wild and scenic rivers, and the North Country National Scenic Trail. The Allegheny is within a day’s drive of one-third of the U.S. population and is part of Governor Rendell’s “Pennsylvania Wilds,” a statewide initiative to boost recreation and tourism in the sparsely populated northern part of the state.

In the middle of a triple digit heat wave in July, I found refuge from the afternoon sun at a busy conference about how to build more livable, sustainable communities in the west. One of the keynote speakers, David Orr, talked about global climate change as we Missoulians sought respite from its immediate effects in any cool, air-conditioned place we could find. Making the Connection

I had the opportunity to meet with Colorado’s Representative Doug Lamborn recently, along with stakeholders from other groups supporting the proposed Browns Canyon Wilderness Area in Chaffee County, near Salida. It’s encouraging that Representative Lamborn took it upon himself to initiate this meeting, and he said we made “a strong case” for Browns Canyon, but he also met with representatives from groups opposed to the new wilderness area.

Scenes of Yellowstone Park Rangers wearing gas masks brought national attention to snowmobile pollution. In Yellowstone (YNP) where the cleanest air in the nation should be found, levels of pollution often exceeded those of downtown Los Angeles (Rodes et al. 1998). Studies were quickly initiated and two-stroke snowmobiles were banned from the Park. Elsewhere, millions of snowmobilers still rev up these engines each winter and head into the snow-covered wildlands.

For the last year and a half, Wildlands CPR and Northwest Connections have been working together to expand road restoration in the Swan Valley of Montana. As part of this project, we worked with American Wildlands’ geographic information systems (GIS) lab (www.wildlands.org) to create a visual history of road development in the Swan Valley. This shows the progressive increase in road mileage over the last 100 years, providing a graphic picture of the current situation and how different it is from the past.

Editor’s Note: this article is meant only as a practical orientation for the layperson, and does not represent the official legal positions of Wildlands CPR or our affiliates. RS 2477 law and policy is very complex and constantly shifting, and it would be impossible to represent the full spectrum of issues here.