Guest opinion

Land of the free?

According to the stated objective, the Wildlands Project initiated 20 years ago would revert 50 percent or more of the continental U.S. to pre-Columbian condition without roads or towns. The ultimate objective is to convert this land to "core wilderness areas" off-limits to humans, with government management of the remaining land for conservation objectives. "Islands of human habitat surrounded by wilderness" describes what is in store.

This scenario is not idle speculation. It is happening. Many seemingly unrelated events are forming pieces of a massive jigsaw puzzle. Many groups of uninformed, well-intentioned people fail to see the big picture of what is happening and why.

Wilderness designation of land achieves close-down of human access except by foot and horseback. Specific regulations vary from place to place. The public generally has no conception of the extent of the land area involved. Try imagining sight-seeing throughout Europe, (uninhabited by humans) without benefit of roads, carrying in all needed food and supplies and carrying out all waste. This expanse of wildlands with these restrictions would be basically impenetrable for the average visitor.

Montana already has 6.4 million acres of National Forest managed as roadless in Montana. In addition, more than 3.5 million acres has officially been designated wilderness by Congress. There are thousands of acres of protected lands in Glacier Park, study areas, wetlands and other categories. More than 80 percent of the state is government owned. Just how much more do we need?

Dr. Reed Noss, under contract with The Nature Conservancy and the Audubon Society called for "at least half" of the lower 48 states to be set aside as wilderness. Through this the nation's land is being transformed into a utopian vision. Dave Foreman, one of the founders of Earth First, is author of a book, "Confessions of an Eco-Warrior" available at the Flathead County library.

A series of United Nations summit conferences formulated this massive worldwide project. At the 1992 Earth Summit, Agenda 21 was initiated as the framework for worldwide environmental programs. At the Fourth Wilderness Congress held in Denver in 1987 the International Banking Cartel sought to collateralize 30 percent of the Earth's Land Surface. WCB proposed trillions of dollars in capitalization with collateral derived from wilderness properties throughout the world. Read on the Internet.

Wildlands Project concept is that of providing wildlife corridors interconnecting vast regions of the continent. One of four continental Biosphere Reserve corridors passing from Alaska to South America is called "The Spine of the Continent." The portion of that passing through Montana is Yellowstone to Yukon (Y2Y), which locally is called the Crown of the Continent. Extensive information and maps are available on the Internet under each title.

People are gradually developing awareness but many still fail to realize the implications, true objectives, or high level planning involved. Even congressmen, unaware of these projects, don't bother with evidence and fail to see the inter-relationship of public and lobbyist pressures and where they are leading the country. Therefore, day by day, our land of the free is being transformed into the land of government, even global, control. One such situation is the Mexican border hot-spot which very likely is U.N. Biosphere Reserve expansion with the major goal of eliminating that border altogether.

Is it any wonder that sensitivity was generated when some of this information was revealed at last week's election? The issue of roadless is simply the tip of the iceberg as it is one of many key approaches to feeding more government land into the Wildlands Project. Core areas would be completely off-limits to people with surrounding buffer zones of closely controlled human activity. Beyond that would be regulated private lands, "zones of cooperation," subject to government control by ever-expanding maize of environmental laws. The first step would be eliminating roads.

We need roads to retain access for fire fighting and hazardous fuel reduction by thinning. Forest lands should also be kept open for use and enjoyment of citizens. We need to sign the roadless petition to keep roads open and vote on the ballot issue in the primary.

Sincerely,

Clarice Ryan

Bigfork