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The New Oregon Wilderness

Posted by: Nate Berg

8 April 2009 - 9:00am

Oregon has just received a wilderness designation on more than 200,000 acres of land. Environmentalists are welcoming the move, which they hope will protect sensitive lands from development and misuse.

"When President Barack Obama's signing pen lifted off a public lands bill April 6, great pieces of Oregon were immediately surrounded by invisible lines."

"Everything inside those lines is now wilderness, the most protected class of federal land. "

"In simple terms, that means no logging or non-human-powered recreation. But wilderness amounts to more than a list of don'ts, and visiting just one corner of the state's 200,000 acres of freshly minted wilderness can explain why."

"Specifically, it means no cars, no roads, no permanent structures, no mountain bikes, no paragliding and in general nothing mechanized. Fernandez likes to say that you can still go hunting, hiking, fishing and camping there, but 'you just have to leave your chain saw and bulldozer at home.'"

Full Story: No cars, no roads, no kidding
Source: The Oregonian, April 7, 2009
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Short of erasing existing political and jurisdictional boundaries, citizens and officials need to develop the capacity to work across boundaries according to the "problem-sheds" of the land and water issues we face in the 21st century.
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