Search Articles:

 

Breaking News......... Wife, infant daughter of Butte Marine killed in car crash while he's at basic training......... Montana F-15s duel Iowa F-16s in training exercises above Montana towns......... MISSOULA MARATHON 2009: Today's the day to pick up race packets!......... Wildfire season off to a cool, wet, slow start in the West......... Local News......... Schweitzer: ‘Damn right I'm mad' at GM........Three council members file suit against city........Fishing limits dropped on 6 backcountry lakes........Baucus: Health care plan will be produced before end of August........Fighting fire with fire on Blue Mountain: Strategy designed to keep smoke from billowing into Missoula during the summer........Jury acquits ex-Griz Wilson in second murder trial........

I commend Sen. Jon Tester for supporting open meetings with the public when the management and access of federal public lands is discussed. Certainly any discussion about use of roads paid for by the taxpayer is appropriate when meeting with a private landowner such as Plum Creek, which wants to use roads constructed by the USDA Forest Service and the taxpayers as a selling point when marketing millions of acres of timber-harvested lands in 18 states.

This is why I am puzzled that Tester refuses to acknowledge the secret meetings that have gone on between officials of the U.S. Department of Interior and a sovereign Indian nation since February 2003 that have already had the effect of destroying the morale of scientists and technicians, including members of that sovereign Indian nation, that work for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service at the National Bison Range.

This same sovereign nation was given 18 months of contract work representing more than 50 percent of the overall operational budget and work force of one of America’s first national wildlife refuges in 2005 and 2006, and did such a poor job that they were removed from the Bison Range three months after their contract expired. The secret meetings with the same sovereign nation’s lobbyists and lawyers continue to push Tester and DOI officials to give all jobs and operational budgets to them without supervision or oversight. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service that is charged with caring for the National Wildlife Refuge System were excluded from secret lobbying meetings by this sovereign nation and are forbidden from speaking up against these secret meetings that exclude the taxpayer that pays for them.

No federal public land should be managed by a contractor, sovereign nation or real estate developer. That includes efforts by Tom Maclay to take over the management of more than 12,000 acres on and around Lolo Peak encompassing two national forests. Maclay plans to block off access to these 12,000 acres that belong to all of us, just as the National Bison Range belongs to all of us, no matter our ancestry, political clout or wealth. Wildlife living on those 12,000 acres will disappear as humans gouge ski runs down the hillsides and build restaurants and warming huts to accommodate out-of-state and part-time wealthy skiers who purchase land on Maclay’s land at the base of the 12,000 acres in a clever real estate scheme, similar to what will happen if Plum Creek sells its lands to real estate developers.

I object strongly to any special interest group or sovereign nation taking over critical management of large tracks of federal public land that should be managed by the men and women who have worked their lives for these lands and have been trained to do so.

Hanging in the balance are millions of more acres of federal public lands that will fall into the economic development hands of humans who want to create land spaces for themselves, and not the wildlife or natural resources that were set aside for that purpose. Theodore Roosevelt warned us of this greed and now, if allowed to happen, his greatest fears will come true.

Don’t let it.

Susan Campbell Reneau is the author of 21 books on wildlife conservation and hunting. She writes from Missoula, and can be contacted at bluemountain @montana.com.

---

---

Add your comment now! Write your comment in the form below.
(Email address is for verification only. If you'd like to email a story, look for the link above)

---