Conservation updates

Regional and National

Staff recently traveled to Washington, D.C., to meet with the Colorado congressional delegation on various land issues, to attend a national meeting on Forest Service recreation policy, and to meet with the U.S. Forest Service Washington, D.C. staff on national recreation policies.

CMC staff met with Rep. Mark Udall, Rep. Diana DeGette’s staff, Rep. Joel Hefley’s staff, Rep. Tom Tancredo, and Senator Wayne Allard’s staff. We discussed a number of issues, including appropriations and land management policies. We asked all members of the delegation to support a wildlife protection amendment (Wu-Smith-Udall amendment) to the appropriations bill that would remove excess money from the timber program and apply it toward habitat protection programs. Only Representatives DeGette and Udall voted for this amendment.

Rep. Tancredo has been working with CMC staff to improve the management of ORVs on public lands.

Senators Campbell and Allard both refused to sign a pledge that they would not place environmental riders on the Senate appropriations bills. In fact, Sen­ator Campbell recently added a rider that would refuse funding to the White River National Forest for the implementation of the new management plan until the Forest Service undertakes an extensive and costly (and unnecessary, in our opinion) economic analysis of the Forest Service’s preferred alternative.

CMC staff briefed the delegation on the severe fiscal state of the agencies in regard to recreation and asked them to assist in increasing recreation allocations in future budget bills.

In June, thirteen organizations including the CMC signed a letter to Interior Secretary Babbitt suggesting that he consider creating a landscape monument in northwest Colorado called Vermillion National Monument. This monument will encompass the 88,000-acre citizens-proposed Vermillion Basin wilderness area as well as three Areas of Critical Environmental Concern, two Wilderness Study Areas, and a portion of a Wild Horse Management unit. See www.cmc.org/cmc/conservation/hottopic.htm for more information.

The Wilderness Mapping Weekends are a wonderful success and way too much fun to be work! We have hosted three week­ends so far and have another two to go (August 25­27 and September 2­4). Kudos to Sarah Peters (our Membership Coordinator) and Ryan Jackson, who were hired to do the cooking and camp preparation and are doing a wonderful job!

The CMC has been extremely active in commenting on the U.S. Forest Service’s draft Recreation Agenda. This document is intended to be a “blueprint for the future” on how the Forest Service will meet the recreation needs of the public and still obey their mandates to protect the natural resources. We are seriously disturbed over the direction the document sets forth. Specifically, the Agenda directs the agency “to seek private investment in public lands” and to promote tourism; at the same time it fails to resolve how the agency will fund its $812 million maintenance backlog and pay for additional recreation, not to mention how the agency will insure protection of the natural environment in this culture of industrialized recreation and increased tourism. 

Comments were due mid-August, but we encourage you to submit comments even if the date has passed. Visit the CMC’s conservation web page for more information at www.cmc.org/cmc/conservation/hottopic.htm. For a copy of the agenda, go to www.fs.fed.us/recreation/.

Informational evenings coming to a town near you! The CMC, along with the Southern Rockies Ecosystem Project, will host five evening workshops/events around the state this fall. The workshops, which will be attended by land managers, conservation organizations, recreation organizations, and other interested organizations and individuals, will address the role of conservation biology in land management and unveil the just-printed State of the Ecosystem Report. The events will be held in October and early November in Fort Collins, Grand Junction, Durango, Vail, and Golden. For more information, contact Hannah Gosnell at gosnell@ucsub.colorado.edu or
your group chair or conservation representative.

Western Slope/Southwest

The CMC, with the assistance and urging of the Western Slope Group, filed an appeal to the Uncompahgre National Forest travel plan. The travel plan violated the forest plan in numerous ways, including not meeting the habitat capability standards outlined in the plan.

The Western Slope Group is participating in a Mesa County­sponsored process to consider and debate the DeGette wilderness proposal. Members of the Western Slope Group have been and continue to be remarkable advocates for wilderness. Our sincere thanks for all your efforts and dedication.

Front Range

The Denver Group submitted comments on the South Platte Watershed Management Plan. The plan is unique because it was reached through a stakeholder process consisting of water users, recreationists, and environmentalists.

The Fort Collins Group hiked Trail 1135 in the proposed Troublesome Wilderness Area north of Granby with the goal of documenting damage from motorized use and to see the use issues firsthand. Environ­men­tal groups are urging the Forest Service to close Trail 1135 because it bisects the proposed wilderness area and crosses an area zoned as non-motorized in the forest plan. After considerable urging, the Forest Service has initiated a public process to consider the closure of the road.

Get involved! Join the CMC List Serve. To subscribe, send an email to lists@climber.org with the following message: “subscribe conservation Firstname Lastname <email address>” For more information about CMC list serves, send a message to info@climber.org. The CMC posts informational notices about land management issues, alerts, and events and also solicits members’ opinions about particular issues.

All comments submitted to agencies are posted on the CMC’s web site at www.cmc.org/cmc/conservation.