Opinion: The American wilderness is part of what makes Americans different

The Wet Beaver Wilderness in Coconino National Forest in Arizona is one of many designated wilderness areas in the United States. (Photo by Deborah Lee Soltesz via The Conversation)

U.S. state and federal parks are full of breathtaking views, unique plant life and animals roaming in their natural habitats. But their abundant wildness offers more to the country than fabulous hiking trails and jaw-dropping beauty; it's "crucial to American freedom and identity," write Leisl Carr Childers and Michael Childers in their opinion for The Conversation.

When Congress passed the Wilderness Act in 1965, it intended to protect and honor "places that evoked mystery and wonder, 'where the earth and its community of life are untrammeled by man, where man himself is a visitor who does not remain,'" the writers explain. "These are wild landscapes that present nature in its rawest form."

The law instructs the federal government to "protect these areas 'for the permanent good of the whole people,'" they write. "Wilderness areas are found in national parks, conservation land overseen by the U.S. Bureau of Land Management, national forests and U.S. Fish and Wildlife refuges."

How the Wilderness Act came to be is a part of our national history and illustrates how Americans planned to share the country's natural wealth with future generations and the world.

It began with the Outdoor Recreation Resources Review Commission, which was established by Congress in 1958, and a letter penned by the "noted Western writer Wallace Stegner about why he cared about preserving wildlands. [His] letter became known as the Wilderness Letter," Childers and Childers explain. The Wilderness Letter sat dormant until "its publication in The Washington Post on June 17, 1962. . . .Then the letter reached a national audience and captured the imagination of generations of Americans. . . . Stegner’s Wilderness Letter became a rallying cry to pass the Wilderness Act."

Wallace Stegner, right, with his son and wife, on a Yosemite National
Park hiking trail. (University of Utah photo via The Conversation)

With flair and an eloquent appeal, Stegner's letter "connected the idea of wilderness to a fundamental part of American identity. He called wilderness 'something that has helped form our character and that has certainly shaped our history as a people … the challenge against which our character as a people was formed … (and) the thing that has helped to make an American different,'" Childers and Childers write. "Without wild places, he argued, the U.S. would be just like every other over-industrialized place in the world."

Stegner’s letter and the spirit it imbues "still resonate as Americans head for their public lands and enjoy the beauty of the wild places protected by wilderness legislation this summer," they write. "With visitor numbers increasing annually and agency budgets at historic lows, we believe it is useful to remember how precious these places are for all Americans. . . . And we agree with Stegner that wilderness, public lands writ large, are more valuable to Americans’ collective identity and expression of freedom than they are as real estate that can be sold or commodities that can be extracted."

Funding system for rural schools that overlap with national forests is 'brutal.' Advocates seek a new solution.

Trinity Alps office building in Weaverville, California, pop. 3,667.
(Trinity Alps Unified School District photo via The Daily Yonder)

A lack of support for the 20-year-old Secure Rural Schools and Community Self-Determination Act program has rural schools in 41 states preparing for a possible loss of vital funding. Leaders of those rural schools are advocating for a renewal of funding and a better plan for more secure funding in the future. 

"The law was up for re-authorization in 2024 but died last December without a vote from the House of Representatives," report Claire Carlson and Lane Wendell Fischer of The Daily Yonder. "The Senate had already voted unanimously to approve it."

The federal program provides money to counties that include National Forest land. "Because public land cannot be used or taxed for local interests, the SRS program offsets this loss of local revenue by allocating federal funds to support essential community infrastructure like roads and schools," Carlson and Fischer explain. "SRS requires regular re-authorization, typically every three years, and is often accompanied by reductions in funding."

In 2016, SRS funding wasn't approved in time, and schools missed a year of needed funding. The same thing may happen in 2025. Jamie Green, superintendent of Trinity Alps Unified School District in rural Trinity County, California, told the Yonder, “This every three-year thing, it’s brutal. Absolutely brutal.”

In 2023, Trinity Alps was allotted $600,000 from SRS. "These funds accounted for 5% of the district’s budget and were essential in paying for teachers, programming, and maintenance work," the Yonder reports. "With no clear path toward re-authorization, Green’s current goal is to do what he can to cushion Trinity Alps for the looming shortfall."

With the ongoing potential for funding gaps or reductions within the program, advocates want a longer-term solution. Mark Haggerty, a senior fellow at the independent nonprofit research institute Center for American Progress, favors establishing a trust. He told the Yonder, "A trust makes sure that communities have the resources they need. . . . It’s not asking the taxpayers for permanent appropriations, and it’s not adding to the debt. But it gives counties and schools predictable payments that they can rely on."

To read about obstacles a trust faces, click here. 

Bound by a passion to protect a 'pristine corner of Colorado,' this 'ragtag organization' helped change government policy

A hiker enjoys the White River National Forest, which overlaps
with the Thompson Divide. (Adobe Stock photo)

A shared passion for protecting Colorado's Thompson Divide brought together a group of people with few other interests in common. "The drilling leases in a pristine corner of Colorado seemed like a done deal. But then an unlikely alliance of cowboys and environmentalists emerged. And things changed," reports Zoë Rom for The New York Times. "Their campaign could serve as a model for future environmental efforts."

Located in west-central Colorado, the Thompson Divide "overlaps with part of the White River National Forest, one of the most visited national forests in the U.S.," Rom explains. The area is also "home to endangered lynxes and one of the expansive organisms in the world: the state’s largest Aspen stand, a colony of trees connected by a lateral root system."

The region is beloved by hikers, conservationists, ranchers, cyclists and snowmobilers, some of whom formed "the self-described ragtag organization" now known as the Thompson Divide Coalition, Rom writes. The coalition added legal assistance from Peter Hart, legal director for Wilderness Workshop, a nonprofit environmental group in Carbondale, Colorado. Together the movement developed "a novel legal strategy that helped win a 20-year pause on new oil and gas development across the area."

Originally, the group tried and failed to buy back the 80-some oil and gas leases the Bush Administration had issued on the Thompson Divide. When leaseholders turned down the the coalition's offers, Hart's legal team scrutinized the sales. There they found "that the federal government’s haste to issue leases had left them with vulnerabilities," Rom reports. "For one thing, opportunities for public comment during the leasing process appeared to be inadequate, an apparent violation of the National Environmental Policy Act."

More legal digging led to "administrative challenges, which eventually sent one leaseholder to federal court against the Bureau of Land Management," Rom explains. With the lease's legal and administrative problems exposed, "leaseholders who had declined to sell were now eyeing the exits in light of potential legal complications and public discontent around drilling."

Big trees are a big deal. Preservation of old-growth trees is becoming a contentious battle nationwide.

The largest trees often grow together in a 'stand.'
(Photo by Steve Ringman, The Seattle Times)

Trees don't seem controversial, but they are. "The fight over the future of the last old and mature forests in America intensified Tuesday when the Biden administration called for preservation of old-growth trees," reports  Lynda V. Mapes of The Seattle Times. "The administration, after creating an inventory of the nation's old growth, wants to amend 128 forest land-management plans to conserve and steward 25 million acres of old-growth forests and 68 million acres of mature forest across the national forest system."

"For the Pacific Northwest — home to much of the nation's remaining old forests — an effort is already underway to overhaul and update key old-growth protections in the Northwest Forest Plan of 1994, one of the world's most ambitious conservation plans," Mapes writes. "But the nationwide attention from the federal government is adding to the debate over old forests' cultural and ecological significance and their ability to suck up carbon from the atmosphere that is warming the planet."

Not everyone agrees the new initiative is needed. The American Forest Resource Council, a trade group, "panned the old-growth initiative as unnecessary and burdensome," Mapes explains. Council President Travis Joseph issued a statement, saying, "Existing federal environmental laws and forest plans provide direction on managing and protecting old growth. Yet the agency is now being directed to embark on a new, massive bureaucratic process — during a wildfire and forest health crisis — that will likely make forest management more complex, costly, and contentious."

Big trees are a big deal. "They are the most important helpers in absorbing carbon because while they are slower growing than young trees, their greater mass locks away more carbon," Mapes reports. "Recent research shows large trees dominate carbon storage in the Pacific Northwest. Old and mature natural forests also provide a haven for biodiversity and human well-being."

As part of the Northwest Forest Plan overhaul, a 21-member committee "began work last September on updates to reflect changed conditions and new science." The U.S. Forest Service has announced its intent to prepare an environmental impact statement, expected in June, on the Northwest Forest Plan amendment, with a 90-day public comment period to begin at that time. 

Opinion: Sell this national treasure to the National Park Service, not the highest private bidder

Pronghorn migrate through the Kelly Parcel, Wyoming.
(Photo by Savannah Rose, Writers on the Range)

A potential public auction of a coveted piece of land within Grand Teton National Park has outraged some Wyoming residents who feel the pristine 640 acres should remain a public holding. "Simply put, this small inholding, known as the 'Kelly Parcel,' should never be privatized — never. It is one of the most awe-inspiring and important pieces of open space remaining in America," writes Savannah Rose in her opinion for Writers on the Range. "Its borders include the National Elk Refuge and Bridger-Teton National Forest. Its value was appraised in 2022 at $62.4 million. However, the director of the Office of State Lands and Investment just recommended a starting bid of $80 million."

The money aside, Rose insists that privatizing the Kelly Parcel threatens wildlife that has thrived there for centuries. '"The land is a vital migration corridor for elk, moose, big horn sheep antelope, pronghorn, and mule deer traveling into and out of the national park. It also hosts 87 other 'Species of Greatest Conservation Need'. . . . And the annual, 200-mile-long migration corridor known as the Path of the Pronghorn — from Grand Teton National Park to the upper Green River Basin — passes right through the Kelly Parcel at the crux of what’s recognized as the longest mammalian migration in the contiguous United States."

"Wyomingites have been resolute in their opposition to selling the state-owned parcel. The publicity generated by the Jackson Hole Conservation Alliance collected more than 2,600 comments from people opposed to an auction, and hundreds of opponents turned out at each of four public hearings in November. Many others contacted the state directly for a total of more than 10,000 people opposed to a state auction," Rose writes. 

Auctioning off the Kelly Parcel would provide $4 million a year for Wyoming public schools. But at what cost? Rose writes, "There is a better approach. Selling the parcel to the National Park Service — as Wyoming did with its other three parcels within the park — is projected to generate up to $120 million over 30 years."

State officials recently tabled the Kelly Parcel auction until 2024. "But the State Board of Land Commissioners didn't take the idea of an auction off the table," reports Billy Arnold of Jackson Hole News & Guide. "In the meantime, they will explore swapping the Kelly parcel for other federal lands in Wyoming specifically for oil and gas development."