Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Inside…
A Look Down the Trail, by Bethanie
Walder. Page 2
The Plum Creek Chronicles, Pages 3-5
Get with the Program: Restoration and
Transportation Program Updates.
Pages 6-7
Odes to Roads: Undemocratic Din (part
two), by Ted Williams. Pages 8-9
DePaving the Way: by Bethanie Walder.
Pages 10-11
Wildlands CPR’s 2008 Annual Report.
Pages 12-14
Regional Reports & Updates. Page 15
Biblio Notes: ORV impacts on Sand
Dune and Beach Habitats, by Beth
Gibson. Pages 16-18
New Resources. Page 19
Citizen Spotlight on Tim Clarke, by
Laurel Hagen. Pages 20-21
Around the Office, Membership Info.
Pages 22-23
Visit us online:
Photos (clockwise from top left): the scenic Swan Valley (Wildlands CPR); wildlife on the road (Marcel Huijser);
a Swan subdivision (Wildlands CPR), and; one of Plum Creek’s square-mile clearcuts (Northwest Connections.)
wildlandscpr.org
Editor’s Note: some scenes have been slightly dramatized to fit your newsletter
• US Department of Agriculture
Undersecretary Mark Rey
• Montana Senators Jon Tester and
Max Baucus
• The Government Accountability Office
(GAO)
• Missoula County Commissioners and
County Attorneys
• Other County Commissioners in Montana
• Social investment firms
• Conservation organizations
• Conservation lawyers
— continued on page 3 —
The Road-RIPorter, Spring Equinox 2009 3
The Plum Creek Chronicles
— continued from page 3 —
Interlude
Featuring: Sen Max Baucus, conservation organizations, Plum
Creek
The camera’s frame is filled with a signature… that of Senator Max Baucus. It
zooms out to include the other players…
Montanans seem equally excited and alarmed about the proposal – which
has a $510 million price tag (only partly funded by the Farm Bill). Should it
happen, Plum Creek will be laughing all the way to the bank – after all, they
never paid for the land in the first place (they came to own it as a result of the
19th century railroad land grants). While the majority of Montanans seem to
want this land to be converted to public ownership, few can disguise their frus-
tration over the fact that Plum Creek will make millions from the deal.
Act Three
Featuring: conservation organizations/lawyers; social invest-
ment firms
Scene One:
Entire square mile sections of Plum Creek land
Meanwhile, back at the ranch… images of suits and ties, bifocals and head have been heavily logged (above - photo courtesy
scratching fill the screen… of Northwest Connections). Below, the Swan River
meanders through the valley, Wildlands CPR photo.
The county, Tester’s office and the GAO are completing their due diligence
to challenge the disastrous easement negotiations. Conservationists want
to engage, but decide to remain behind the scenes, as Missoula County and lium brings in Newground Social Invest-
the Senator are doing a good job making Plum Creek look bad in the media. ment in Seattle, which has engaged in
Nonetheless, conservationists work with their own lawyers to identify potential other dealings with Plum Creek, and the
challenges to any final renegotiation of the easements. Any litigation must wait two firms launch a shot across Plum
until the easements are finalized. There must be something else conservation- Creek’s bow. The mere mention of their
ists can do while they wait for the case to ripen… plan attracts more negative media at-
tention to Plum Creek. Plum Creek and
Scene Two: the shareholders trade letters back and
forth over several months, culminating
The camera cuts to a classic scene: conservation staffers at a happy hour party… in a final decision by the investment
scribbling on cocktail napkins… firms to file a formal shareholder resolu-
tion. Wildlands CPR provides the firms
Fortuitously, staff from Wildlands CPR and the Clark Fork Coalition end up with the bulk of the information needed
at a small party with representatives from Trillium Asset Management, a social to continue with these actions.
investment firm. They cook up a plan to launch a shareholder action against
Plum Creek to pressure the firm into withdrawing from the negotiations. Tril-
F or the past nine years, our restoration program has been led both fear-
lessly and creatively by Marnie Criley. In mid-2008 Marnie informed us
that she was ready to move on, and that she would be leaving Wildlands
CPR at the end of the year. Even though we had about six months to get
used to the idea, it’s still pretty strange not having her as an official part of
the Wildlands CPR team. As we continue to adjust, we thought we’d take
this opportunity to share with you, our members and readers, the amazing
story of what Marnie started with, what she built and where our program
is as a result of her work,
It was January 2000, we had just finished a major push to press the
Forest Service to change off-road vehicle management, and the roadless
rule was about to be finalized. Wildlands CPR had been involved at the
inception of the roadless campaign, and as it grew into a major DC-based
effort, we complemented the endeavor with a focus on place-based road
restoration. By the time the rule was adopted, people understood that
wildland roads can be quite damaging. We created a full-time position,
enabling us to aggressively expand our emphasis on watershed restoration
through road removal. Within a short time, Marnie directed Wild-
lands CPR toward research into the economics
Marnie was working as a restoration practitioner with her partner and socio-political aspects of watershed restora-
Mark, but she had a very strong policy background. She and Mark had tion through road removal. She became a key
attended several Wildlands CPR workshops, most of the time ending up as participant in the national effort to develop a
de-facto instructors to Forest Service participants. Marnie was clearly per- set of restoration principles, building alliances
fect for the job, and apparently she thought so, too, because she took it! with partners in the community-based forestry
movement. Marnie helped many understand
that restoration could result in win-win situa-
tions and move us away from tiresome jobs vs.
the environment arguments, and
she oversaw the development
of a formal economic analysis
of the jobs creation benefits of
road decommissioning. Today
it seems everyone is jumping on
the green jobs bandwagon, but
Marnie blazed a trail those many
years ago. We’ve expanded on
and promoted the results of that
first report (Investing in Com-
munities, Investing in the Land)
ever since, with Marnie becom-
ing a sought-after expert in
As a direct result of Marnie’s efforts, road decommissioning is much more common than in the past. developing high-skill, high-wage,
Here, before (above) and after photos of a restored road in Rye Creek, Bitterroot national Forest, Montana. green restoration jobs.
Photos by Byron Williams, US Forest Service.
This review includes just some of the big projects that Marnie has
been involved in, but throughout the past 9 years, she’s been helping Wild-
lands CPR grow into the diverse, respected organization that we are today.
When Marnie left Wildlands CPR at the end of 2008, she did so with one
primary goal in mind – to turn Restore Montana into an effective organiza-
tion promoting a restoration economy in the state of Montana. She’s got a
board of directors (which includes Wildlands CPR E.D. Bethanie Walder),
she’s in the process of raising money, and she’s got a vision for how to
move forward. Restore Montana is a coalition effort, and Wildlands CPR
will continue to be a big part of it. We hope this brief review of Marnie’s
Marnie brought a diverse array of talents to the impact on Wildlands CPR provides a small token of our thanks for all her
organization. hard work with us. Marnie, we wish you all the luck in the world — we
hope you’re as successful at this next endeavor as you were with Wild-
lands CPR — we’ll miss you!
Editor’s Note: This is the second part of this essay; we printed the first half in the last issue of
The RIPorter (13.4). The essay appeared in its entirety in Forest Magazine in summer 2008, but
was written in the late 1990s. The places of employment and/or titles of some of the characters
have since changed.
An Opportunity Missed 0%
11,700 20,499
How can the agency refer to this as “rightsiz- Loss in Passenger Car Access
ing” the road system? Just for argument’s sake, 100,000
let’s pretend that the FS was rightsizing like an
93,600
auto manufacturer might. The workforce could Graphic
represent different types of roads as defined by adapted
90,000
85,022 from
Maintenance Level (ML): managers represent-
Miles
1997
1998
2000
2001
2002
2003
2004
2005
2006
Contract Income
Expenses
Contributions & $16,500
Other
Membership
$15,238 Grants
$63,960
$451,521
Org. Development
$48,726 Admin. & Fundraising
$49,473
FS Trail Classification Update This means that road construction through Berners Bay
will not commence this summer, nor any time soon. Governor
In mid-December, Wildlands CPR and several other Palin and the State now have three choices: (a) appeal the
groups provided comments on interim final directives the court’s decision; (b) revise the EIS according to the district
Forest Service issued in October to address how recreational court’s instructions, or; (c) scrap the project altogether. Gov.
trails are managed. These directives, while positive overall, Palin seemed ambivalent about the proposed road, and now
also had a few zingers buried in their depths. We’re still wait- must decide to either throw more good money after bad or to
ing to see whether the FS listens to any of our suggestions to scrap the road and put the state’s money to better use.
apply common sense to this guidance.
Visit www.seacc.org/issues/transportation for the full
These directives provide no direction for how trail decision.
maintenance and upgrade projects are to comply with NEPA
and public involvement, leading to a very real concern that
trails will be upgraded, either to a higher standard trail for the
same use or from a nonmotorized to a motorized trail, with-
out environmental analysis and without public involvement.
Wildlands CPR will be closely watching for the final ver- The planned road would have crossed dozens of active avalanche
sion of these directives to determine if the Forest Service has shutes. Photo courtesy of Southeast Alaska Conservation Council.
fixed these, and other problems, and we’ll let you know what
we find out.
Introduction
Sand dunes and sandy beaches contend with surf spray,
storms, wind, and other extreme conditions. These coastal
areas also face unique challenges related to population
growth, climate change, and urban development and sprawl
– more than half the U.S. population lives in coastal areas.
And while these habitats and the flora and fauna that inhabit
them are robust, they are also vulnerable to the impacts of
human recreation and development. In fact, the coastal zone
is home to more than one third of U.S. federally listed species.
In this paper, I review the negative impacts on sand dunes
and sandy beach habitats from off-road vehicles (ORVs)
including cars, trucks, and other vehicles driven off the main
road.
References
Anders, F. & S. Leatherman. 1987. Effects of off-road vehicles
on coastal foredunes at Fire Island, New York, USA.
Environmental Management 11(1): 45-52.
• Enforcement. The report acknowledges that roughly As noted in the report, enforcement of road closures is often
half of ATV and motorcycle riders prefer to ride off of desig- problematic. Here, a closure sign prooves to be an ineffective barrier
nated routes, and that simply designating specific routes for to off roaders.Wildlands CPR file photo.
off-road vehicles is not successful without adequate enforce-
ment.
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