[MCN] New Bill from Utah Senators is an Assault on the Very Idea of Wilderness and the Values of the Wilderness Act

[Matthew Koehler]

TAKE ACTION: http://bit.ly/290JlWs

Tell Senator Tester and Senator Daines to defend the Wilderness Act and
keep mountain bikes – and chainsaws – out of protected Wilderness areas.


For Release: July 19, 2016


For more Information:

George Nickas, Wilderness Watch, 406-542-2048, gnickas at wildernesswatch.org
Kevin Proescholdt, Wilderness Watch, 612-201-9266,
kevinp at wildernesswatch.org





*New Legislation is an Assault on the Very Idea of Wilderness and the
Values of the Wilderness Act*




*The Sustainable Trails Coalition is attempting to amend and weaken the
Wilderness Act*

MISSOULA, MONTANA – Last week Utah Republican Senators Orrin Hatch and Mike
Lee introduced the so-called “Human-Powered Travel in Wilderness Act,” a
piece of legislation that would ride rough-shod over the Wilderness Act of
1964 by opening up America’s National Wilderness Preservation System to
mountain bikes and other machines. The bill would also allow chainsaws and
wheeled devices like carts and wheelbarrows in Wilderness.

For over 50 years the Wilderness Act has protected wilderness areas
designated by Congress from mechanization and mechanical transport, even if
no motors were involved with such activities. This has meant, as Congress
intended, that Wilderness has been kept free from cars, trucks, ATVs,
snowmobiles,
bicycles, and all other types of motorized and mechanized transport.

“We see this for what it is—an assault on the very idea of Wilderness and
the values of the Wilderness Act. Make no mistake, the goals of the
Sustainable Trails Coalition are one of the biggest threats to the National
Wilderness Preservation System,” said George Nickas, executive director of
Wilderness Watch. “At a time when wilderness and wildlife are under
increasing pressures from increasing populations, growing mechanization,
and a rapidly changing climate, the last thing Wilderness needs is to be
invaded by mountain bikes and other machines. “

It’s noteworthy that the Sustainable Trails Coalition had to enlist the
help of some of the most anti-environmental and anti-wilderness members of
Congress to carry their legislation. According to the League of
Conservation Voters (LCV), Senator Orrin Hatch and Senator Mike Lee each
have a lifetime environmental voting score of just 10 percent, while the
most recent LCV scorecard gave Senator Hatch a zero percent and Senator Lee
four percent.

Earlier this year, over 110 conservation and Wilderness organizations from
across America wrote all members of Congress urging them to oppose attempts
to amend and weaken the Wilderness Act and Wilderness protections by
allowing bicycles in designated Wilderness. A copy of that letter is here:
http://bit.ly/1VFoL1U

In the letter, the groups wrote: “These mountain bikers erroneously claim
that mountain bikes were allowed in Wilderness until 1984, but then banned
administratively by the U.S. Forest Service. This claim is simply not true.”

“Mountain bikes are exactly the kind of mechanical devices and mechanical
transport that Congress intended to keep out of Wilderness in passing the
Wilderness Act.  Bikes have their place, but that place is not inside
Wilderness areas,” explained Kevin Proescholdt, Conservation Director of
Wilderness Watch.

“We believe that this protection has served our nation well, and that the
‘benefits of an enduring resource of wilderness’ would be forever lost by
allowing mechanized transport and other machines in these areas.”

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