by Caroline Pufalt
Take the 2008 New Year Wilderness Resolution challenge! Commit to doing some or all of the following:
1. Contact your Senators and U.S. Representative to voice your support for new Wilderness areas in the Mark Twain National Forest.
2. Talk to your friends and relatives who share your concern about preserving Missouri’s special places and ask them to contact their legislators too.
3. Write a letter to your local paper voicing your support for new Wilderness areas in Missouri.
4. No matter how busy you are, take time to visit Missouri’s wild places!
As many of our readers know, the Missouri Chapter of the Sierra Club, along with many other conservation minded groups and individuals, is supporting the addition of up to seven new Wilderness areas in the Mark Twain National Forest.
Our proposal is modest but significant. It seeks to protect seven areas which have been recognized, some for nearly 30 years, as sensitive landscapes deserving special protections. For many years they did receive an important degree of protection written into the Mark Twain National Forest plan as “ sensitive areas” less vulnerable to logging and motorized recreation. But in the most recent Mark Twain National Forest plan-December 2005, those areas lost sensitive area status and are now less protected. National forests are managed through an overall management plan that sets guidelines for how various areas in the forest will be treated. Some areas will be a priority for logging, others for types of wildlife habitat or recreation priorities. Forest plans usually last 10-15 years. Without additional action, these seven areas will be less protected for years in the future.
MO has 1.4 million acres of National Forest land, currently about 4.3% of that is designated as federal Wilderness. Our current proposal would increase that to about 7.3%, not a large percentage. Aside from US Fish and Wildlife, no other public entity, such as State Parks or MO Department of Conservation lands have a wilderness designation. Wilderness provides opportunities for nature to unfold largely without direct effects of modern humanity, it provides recreational opportunities for solitude, hiking, horseback riding, hunting, wildlife viewing and areas for scientific research. For more information see: www.mowild.org. Please contact your U.S. Senators and representatives regarding your support for additional Wilderness areas in MO. Contact your senators at: http://bond.senate. gov/contact/contactme.cfm http://mccaskill.senate.gov/contact.cfm