P-I Focus: Securing the land beneath us
Published 9:00 pm, Saturday, March 30, 2002
Much has been said and written about national security in these times of global conflict. We've been shaken to give serious thought to those words -- national security -- and what they really mean.
The truth is, national security is many things. It is being vigilant against the many facets of terrorism and having a prepared military. It is having the resource base that makes the quality of life we cherish possible. It is conserving the health of the land base that is the very foundation of the quality of life and of life itself. This land produces our food, water and the air we breathe.
Much of my life has been dedicated to the business of land management, conservation and research. I have had more than one person's share of debates on the what, why and how of public land management. Amid the strife in the Mideast, consider its natural resources.
Today, what the Old Testament referred to as the "fertile crescent" is anything but fertile and productive. Once-green valleys are brown, and most streams are dry. The land in the Mideast is simply used up and worn out from centuries of too many people pushing it beyond its limits. National security is partly about living within the ecological limits of the land and not allowing short-term economic gains to override long-term sustainability of the land legacy we bequeath to future generations.
At one time, we viewed our public lands as a vast storehouse of inexhaustible resources to be exploited for short-term gain. Too often, the result was environmental disaster and social disorder. Fortunately, we've learned much from those mistakes. Now we must ask ourselves if in this new century we're willing to make the right choices for the health of our land and water resources, in the name of national security.
So I offer some critical conservation challenges. Obviously there are many more. However these are on issues that I faced as head of both the U.S. Forest Service and the Bureau of Land Management, stewards of the bulk of America's public lands.
I believe water is the issue of the century and will be the issue of the millennium. Reports tell us that two-thirds of the world's population will be dealing with water shortages within the next 25 years.
The cleanest water in the country flows off our forests. Collectively, our public lands are by far the largest and perhaps most important water provider in the United States. The 192 million acres of national forests alone provide drinking water to more than 60 million Americans living in some 3,400 communities in 33 states. Our activities on the land must take long-term watershed function into account. The main performance measures for land managers ought to be water quality and watershed function.
Land fragmentation and sprawl
An average of 3.2 million acres a year of forest, farmland and open space were converted to more urban uses between 1992 and 1997, an area about twice the size of Delaware. The impact of sprawl is immense. Our popular parks are being loved to death. Recreation on all public land is growing rapidly, as private land is increasingly posted with "no trespassing" signs.
Our wildlands will become more important in decades ahead. We have 104 million acres of congressionally designated wilderness, but not all major ecosystems are represented. Bottomland hardwoods and tall grass prairie, for example, are missing and should be added to the system. Should the current administration be relaxing our roadless policies when science and common sense tell us our public lands provide us with the cleanest water in the country and are the remaining habitats for salmon and many endangered species?
In the wake of sprawl and fragmentation comes concern about fire, especially at what is termed today the "urban-wildland interface." That's a fancy term that tells us people are living in places that are half-wild, half-Wal-Mart. Unhealthy forests today are due to a combination of past timber management practices and the cumulative effects of 100 years of fire suppression. One challenge today is to help people understand that while fire is always dangerous, not all fire is bad. Like wind and water, fire is one of nature's cleansing agents.
Loss of biodiversity
We are losing species at an alarming rate as we develop the land, and the trend must be reversed. Our national forests and grasslands contain 181 of the 327 watersheds identified by The Nature Conservancy as critical for the conservation of biodiversity. Undisturbed wildlands serve as a refuge and often the last stronghold for rare and endangered species. High biodiversity enhances ecosystem stability, resistance to invasion by non-native species and nature's resilience. We must protect our repositories of biodiversity on public lands, especially old-growth forests.
The exotic species problem is sometimes described as an explosion in slow motion. The spread of noxious weeds in the West is estimated to be about 5,000 acres a day. One such weed, leafy spurge, has infested more than 5 million acres in 23 states, causing economic losses of more than $100 million annually. Many exotics thrive in disturbed habitats, so an important defense is protecting natural biodiversity and remaining undisturbed wildlands.
More than any other issue, old growth symbolizes the national forest management conflict and controversy for the past 30 years. The basic question is: How many acres of our old-growth forests do we want to keep?
In my home state of Wisconsin, virtually all of the old-growth forests were cut by the turn of the last century. Estimates in the Pacific Northwest indicate that about 13 percent of old-growth forests remain and the vast majority are on public land. These are the sources of clean water, the reservoirs of biodiversity, the remnants of what our forests once were. It is not in the best long-term interest of this nation to continue harvest of old-growth forests. The Bush administration would be wise to call a halt to the harvest of old-growth forests on public land.
Many public land managers have told me that off-road vehicle use was their most pressing challenge. Bringing order to the use of all-terrain vehicles on public land will be exceedingly difficult and controversial. It will make the spotted owl issue look easy. But if the agencies and community of interests do not take it on, it will likely be thrown to the courts to resolve.
Isn't leadership all about not shying away from difficult issues? Whatever we do to resolve the off-road vehicle use issue, most important is this: All of our activities must take place within the ecological limits of the land.
1872 Mining Law
The 1872 Mining Law is perhaps the most vexing and outdated natural resources law in the country. The royalty provisions are simple: None exist. It is a blatant giveaway of public resources. It allows privatization of public land for $2.50 to $5 an acre, sometimes by foreign or multinational mining companies. Every other natural resource use -- timber, grazing, oil and gas, recreation -- is subject to approval or rejection by field managers for environmental or safety reasons, all but hard-rock mining. The Bush administration has chosen to relax the conservation provisions of the mining regulations developed by the Bureau of Land Management over the past couple of years.
Private land conservation
Private land conservation and public land conservation are inextricably linked, and few areas offer more promise for conservation and watershed restoration than the millions of acres of private land. For example, about two-thirds of this nation's forests -- 490 million acres -- are in non-federal ownership. More than 9 million woodland owners own tracts of land less than 100 acres. Good conservation on private lands goes hand in hand with the same on public lands, and in the places where the two come together.
I mention education last because it serves as perhaps the most important means in achieving sustainable long-term land health. We need to help all citizens and landowners understand and appreciate the full spectrum of what the land does for us as a component of our own national security and for the good of the world.
Eighty percent of the U.S. population is urban or lives in cities and towns. Our challenge is reconnecting people's hearts and minds with the land. That doesn't mean they have to live in the woods or out on the prairie. They just need to understand and appreciate the land that sustains us.
Republican President Theodore Roosevelt, who practically defined the word "conservation," understood the relationship between national security and long-term land health. Given the Bush administration's insensitivity to conservation and land health, the president should carefully reconsider his policies of short-term exploitation, which may benefit a few industries but will not solve today's challenges.
Instead he should follow the lead of his fellow Republican of a century ago and ponder this question: Will future generations thank us for the old-growth forests harvested, the remaining wild places exploited and the oil and gas fields pumped dry, or for the oil and gas we left for them and the wild places we left wild?