Groups call for more wilderness
Two wilderness groups are recommending additional wilderness in the Mission Mountains, Jewel Basin and Swan Crest areas adjacent to the Bob Marshall Wilderness Complex.
The Montana Wilderness Association and Headwaters Montana recently released two reports on their recommendations for the Flathead National Forest, which includes 147,315 acres in the Swan Range.
The Swan Range recommendations include all of the Jewel Basin Hiking Area along with land south to Tom Tom Mountain, for a total of 27,000 acres. The groups also recommend adding 120,315 acres to the Bob Marshall Wilderness from Bunker Creek north along Bruce Ridge to Sullivan Creek.
The groups note that their recommendations include less area than in a bill passed by Congress in 1988.
For the Mission Mountains, the group’s recommendations are all located east of the Mission-Flathead Divide and is primarily unroaded land at lower elevations that provides fish and wildlife security for sensitive species, like bull trout.
That includes 19,540 acres in six separate areas adjacent to the Mission Mountains Wilderness. Most of the land isn’t particularly scenic and has few if any trails. Some areas are swamps or sloughs, the reports state.
The groups based their reports on their own field studies. They also include suggestions for “backcountry” zones, which have limited development but allow for motorized use in some cases.
“We spent the whole summer getting out as much as we could,” Headwaters Montana director Dave Hadden said. “We thought these were the highest quality lands.”
The reports also draw on historic conservation efforts. The Jewel Basin recommendations are based in part on a wilderness study and recommendation by the Forest Service in 1964. The Jewel Basin is currently protected as a 15,000-acre hiking and camping area but is not protected as wilderness.
Most of their recommended areas in the Swan Range are unroaded. One exception is the lower reaches of Bunker Creek, where controversial roads were built in the early 1970s. Many of the old roads there have been abandoned and are now trails. The main road up Bunker Creek still exists, but a berm was put in to stop motorized vehicles from entering.
Hadden said the groups presented their reports to the Forest Service when they were first published in November. Their hope is that some of their recommendations will be included in the new Flathead Forest Plan, a draft of which should be completed by year’s end.
“People live and work in the Flathead Valley because this is a remarkable place,” Hadden said.
In the meantime, the groups hope to get unified community support for the recommendations as the debate over the Forest Plan ramps up this year, Hadden said.
“Bankers put pictures of wilderness on their credit cards,” he said. “That’s what’s selling this place. Let’s leave some for the next generation.”
MWA field director Amy Robinson had similar sentiments.
“The Swan has been recognized for wilderness protections for decades — by the (Congressional) delegation, by citizens and by the Forest Service,” she said. “Let’s secure this legacy. The lands are part of the Bob Marshall Wilderness. Let’s protect them forever.”
The reports can be read online at www.headwaters.org.