nakkh Loc: San Mateo, Ca

ricardo7 Loc: Washington, DC - Santiago, Chile

Save the wilderness!!

G Brown Loc: Sunny Bognor Regis West Sussex UK

Difficult argument to ban people from an area and then expect them to pay for its upkeep (often doing what people used to do in that area like starting fires in yellowstone so that new shoots fed game and kept down tree encroachment.)

Conservation often means 'one person's take on what was there in a snapshot of time" without understanding what was before and what other influences created that environment.

Wilderness is a state of mind - it is or was someones home and workplace. It was where their food grew or lived. To try and go back pre-human influence you need a pre-iceage flora and fauna as well as climate. just not possible in most places.

whether business is a good thing or not - thats horses for courses in MHO.

nakkh Loc: San Mateo, Ca

Conservation should be preservation in a way that leaves the land in it's natural state forever. A lot of land out west is dry and very delicate & one set of tire tracks can last a century. It only takes a few thoughtless people to do irreparable damage to the land.

like this guy:
http://www.cnn.com/2014/01/31/us/utah-boulder-boy-scouts/

Or the visitors in Yellowstone who do this kind of stuff:
http://www.krtv.com/news/yellowstone-releases-video-of-people-walking-on-old-faithful-cone/

Or this:
http://www.umsl.edu/~naumannj/Geography%201001%20articles/ch%204%20biochemical%20cycles%20-%20ecology/Fragile%20Desert%20Landscape%20is%20no%20Match%20for%20Careless%20Intruders.doc

People like this are why areas get shut down & ruin it for all of us.

dljen Loc: Central PA

And we call them conservatives why, I wonder, certainly not because they want to conserve our national parks like Yellowstone... Nothing is sacred when the almighty buck is concerned. #Sad

Blenheim Orange Loc: Michigan

Excellent article and important topic. Thanks, nakkh.

One thing missing, and it is chronically missing in narratives from environmentalists, and that is the impact from suburbanization. The focus on "celebrity" species, and on the more spectacular natural areas ignores the ongoing destruction of less glamorous species and areas.

Mike

nakkh Loc: San Mateo, Ca

Amen to that.

rgrenaderphoto Loc: Hollywood, CA

Did you read the article"

Two bills recently passed by the U. S. House of Representatives aim at decimating wilderness protection: The first (H. R. 3942) would open wilderness areas in Yellowstone National Park to high-tech boating, while the second bill (H.R. 4089) passed in April, would gut the entire 1964 Wilderness Act, opening wilderness areas to development and managing the wildlife of these wild places as game farms. The sponsors of both these bills are well-known conservative enemies of wilderness and the wild animals who range freely in these habitats. Both bills aim at driving a political wedge between environmental communities and their past allies in the outdoor recreational industries.

"managing the wildlife of these wild places as game farms."

We should drop the politicians naked in the wilderness, and let Wolves and Mountain Lions manage their ass.

Blenheim Orange Loc: Michigan

It surprises me that people think there is something vague or controversial about the concept of wilderness, and that the fact that man does and has always "left a footprint" therefore means that the unprecedented destruction of the natural environment we are witnessing today is nothing new.

Wilderness is not a "state of mind," rather the elaborate and complex web of mutual dependency of a myriad of species of flora and fauna, adapted to specific conditions, is a subject if intense scientific study and much is known now with a high degree of certainty.

Nor is wilderness a "snapshot in time," as even the most rudimentary understanding of ecology informs one that natural environments are continually in transition. It is that process that is disrupted and endangered, not some pristine static state, and human survival is ultimately dependent upon that process.

The notion that we must choose between people or nature is also incorrect, since as creatures on the planet we are a part of the natural world.

No one is talking about "banning" people from an area except in very limited and specific emergency circumstances. The debate is about the activities of people in areas. Activities that destroy the lives of native species and threaten their survival threaten the intricate web of life upon which we depend. The pennies, relatively speaking, that we pay for "upkeep" - management and protection of wild areas - is probably the best investment, affording the greatest return of any we could make. It costs so little, and the return - a chance for survival for the human race - is so great.

Mike

SteveR Loc: Michigan

I stopped reading when I found out that high-tech boating was actually canoes and kayaks.

nakkh Loc: San Mateo, Ca

Funny, I searched for the words words "canoes" and "kayaks" & didn't find them anywhere in the article. Where did you see that?

But here's more info on the bill & why it's bad:
"What would the River Paddling Protection Act do? It gives the National Park Service just three years to analyze the environmental impacts of allowing “hand-propelled vessels” on approximately 7,500 miles of Yellowstone and Grand Teton rivers and streams — roughly three times the length of the
Mississippi River.

If the environmental assessment and resulting rules are not in place at the end of the three years, then boaters will be allowed to use park rivers and streams as they see fit until new rules are issued. Further, this legislation would require that the National Park Service consider all types of paddle sports in its environmental review. That means Yellowstone could be opened not just to pack-rafters who want to explore the park’s backcountry, but also to commercial operators:

The park would have to consider and potentially provide access to rafting and tubing companies, as well as to any other commercial operator that could argue that its vessels qualify as “hand-propelled.” This could result in a summer flood of commercial rafters and tubers.

Worse yet, this legislation provides no new park funding, although it comes with a substantial price tag. According to the Congressional Budget Office, it would cost the two parks a combined $4 million dollars in the first five years. "

https://www.hcn.org/wotr/paddling-bill-is-bad-news-for-yellowstone-and-grand-teton-parks

SteveR Loc: Michigan

The bill to introduce boats into the system referred to the boats as "paddlers," which, supported by the Sierra Club, had to be canoes and kayaks. Should I have used the term "paddlers?"

nakkh Loc: San Mateo, Ca

Not paddlers but "Hand propelled vessels" -= See Above =-

Here's a cut of the text:

A BILL



To provide for the use of hand-propelled vessels in Yellowstone
National Park, Grand Teton National Park, and the National Elk Refuge,
and for other purposes.


-= And the link to it: =-
https://beta.congress.gov/bill/113th-congress/house-bill/3492/text

WereWolf1967 Loc: Knoxville, TN

Do you want to poison the wildlife?

tommyf Loc: Vero Beach, FL

Thank you ever so much for your insight, including this article here at UHH. Man has insatiable needs and desires, mostly all at the expense of the health of our planet.