And big new national park additions projected.
BACKERS PROMISE ECONOMIC PROSPERITY
Wildest Bill on the Hill Coming Soon
By Bill Schneider, 2-07-07
Informally, the founders call it “the wildest bill on the hill,” but officially, it’s called the Northern Rockies Ecosystem Protection Act of 2007, and in the next few weeks, Congresswoman Carolyn Maloney (D-NY) will, with the support of 187 co-sponsors (and counting), introduce the bill into the 110th Congress. It would designate many millions of acres of Wilderness, two new national park units, hundreds of miles of wild and scenic rivers, and establish linkage corridors between many of these areas. It covers all of Idaho, Montana and Wyoming, and dips slightly into far eastern Oregon and Washington.
And with the new political landscape created by the last election, backers are confident of their chances for success.
Mike Garrity, executive director of the Alliance for the Wild Rockies (AWR), the main ball carrier of this legislation, says NREPA will be among the highest priority wilderness bills in Congress.
...In summary, here is what NREPA does:
• Protects most roadless lands in the northern Rockies (20,572,147 acres) by giving them the “highest level of legal protection--designation under the 1964 Wilderness Act.”
• Adds two units the National Park System--Hells Canyon-Chief Joseph National Park & Preserve Study Area (1,439,444 acres) along the Oregon/Idaho border and the Flathead National Preserve Study Area (285,078 acres) adjacent to Glacier National Park. “Preserve status prohibits developments which impair natural and scenic values,” according to AWR, “while traditional uses such as hunting, fishing, and firewood gathering and some motorized uses, continue.”
• Designates 1,810 miles of Wild, Scenic and Recreational Rivers.
• Safeguards against habitat fragmentation by establishing a system of Biological Linkage Corridors to connect the region’s core wildlands into what AWR calls “a functioning ecological whole.” These areas would be protected as Wilderness and as special management zones (3,476,118 acres) where development is limited, but not prohibited.
• Establishes a pilot system of Wildland Restoration Areas (1,022,769 acres) and creates jobs restoring damage caused by unwise resource extraction practices. Efforts will focus on removal of excess and unneeded roads, reduction of soil erosion, and restoration of native vegetation and water quality. “Native fisheries and wildlife populations will be rejuvenated ,” again according to AWR, “while boosting the economy in rural communities formerly dependent on resource extraction.”
• Designate the Badger-Two Medicine area adjacent to Glacier National Park as the Blackfeet Wilderness where traditional Native American uses and treaty rights are fully protected.
“It’s in bill drafting now,” Garrity said in a phone interview with NewWest.net. “We expect it to go in soon, at least by March.”
