Cabinet wilderness reaches 40th anniversary

The Wilderness Act celebrated its birthday last Friday, marking forty years of wildland reverence.

Passed in 1964, the act designated wilderness as ³an area of undeveloped federal land retaining its primeval character and influence, without permanent improvements or human condition, which is protected and managed so as to preserve its natural conditions.²

Cesar Hernandez of the Montana Wilderness Association has spent a substantial amount of time in the Libby area over the years. When viewing the Cabinet Mountain Wilderness, Hernandez is suitably humbled.

³Every time I come up here, I marvel at how beautiful the area is,² he said. ³It seems like it¹s almost like a gift to us, especially for the people who get to live here.²

The Cabinet Mountains were included in the first group of areas designated as wilderness 40 years ago. Hernandez said that Wilderness areas should be treated as a precious gift.

³When you¹re given a gift, it¹s something that you should cherish,² he said. ³And how do you show your appreciation for it? You take care of it. When you¹ve been given something like we¹ve been given, it¹s our responsibility to look after it.²

Congress passed the last Montana wilderness bill in 1988. President Reagan vetoed the bill shortly after its passage.

³The last time anything was legislated was 1983,² Hernandez said. ³We¹ve had a 21-year drought.²

Montana currently has nearly 3.5 million acres of wilderness acres. Given its land base of more than 90 million acres and a population that continues to grow seemingly exponentially, Hernandez said Montana should have more wilderness acres coming.

³I would say in the last 40 years we¹ve doubled what the population of this country was,² he said. ³But, at least in Montana, we haven¹t doubled the number of acres of wilderness.²

Areas in the Yaak would be perfectly suited for the wilderness designation, Hernandez said.

³There¹s a million acres in the Yaak and there¹s not one acre of wilderness,² he said. ³The one thing that we¹re assured of, like death and taxes, is that nobody¹s going to be making any more land on this planet. I think we need to be cognizant about it. There are a lot of places out here that deserve protection.²

In 2003 the Forest Service conducted a regional forest-wide assessment on possible wilderness areas and recommended portions of northwest Montana and Idaho for designation.

³The assessment looked at populations within 100 miles of roadless and wildland areas that would qualify as wilderness,² Hernandez said. ³In our situation here, if you draw a 100-mile radius, Spokane and Coeur d¹Alene come into it.²

A shifting of priorities in Americans is prompting an exodus from cities to rural areas. The influx of people will bolster the economy while greatly modifying the shape of economics in places like Libby, Hernandez said.

³Our national forests and wildlands provide a lot of amenity values,² he said. ³We¹re moving from this resource, extraction-based economy to one where more people are saying, ŒI want to live and be amongst the wildlands because I want to hunt, fish and hike. My life has become too hectic.¹ The wildlands are a magnet and we owe them something because they are a treasure.²

The United States is unique in its designation of Wilderness areas. When the government decides to dust off the act in the future, Hernandez said northwest Montana would be a logical choice for wilderness area augmentation.

³The U.S. is unique in that we protect portions of our land,² he said. ³The wildlands have been one of the greatest molders of the character of the American people. We have done well to protect these areas, but we still need to do more.²