[MCN] Guest View: Montana Wilderness Association dishonors its history

[JC]

Guest View: Montana Wilderness Association dishonors its history

http://mtstandard.com/opinion/columnists/guest-view-montana-wilderness-association-dishonors-its-history/article_3b6acc03-4ffd-5635-ad8f-447dc85beb62.html

The Montana Wilderness Association enjoyed a proud history, with leaders
and members of conviction and long ties to the land. We all looked up to
Loren Kreck, Cecil Garland, Doris Milner and Clif Merritt. We listened to
our elders, and learned from them.

>From its inception through the 1980s MWA was a grassroots wilderness
organization and worthy of our support. This changed in the late 1980s
when, under political pressure, they removed Bill Cunningham, a consummate
organizer who shepherded several Wilderness bills through Congress.

A troubling shift continued since the 1980s when the U.S. became what Noam
Chomsky called "a one-party system, the Capital Party," the left and the
right both "compromising" fundamental social and environmental justice,
often under the guise of seductive terms like "collaboration," which
conceal the true state of affairs.

Sadly, MWA became part of "the Capital Party," abandoning a loud, proud,
and uncompromising voice for wilderness. The more politically expedient MWA
has taken a greater influx of big money from sources such as the Pew
Foundation that pushed for collaboration with the timber industry. In 1990
MWA unveiled the Lolo Accord, legislation concocted with the timber
industry. It was a classic example of "ice and rocks" wilderness in
exchange for roadbuilding and logging of 500,000 acres of roadless areas on
the Lolo National Forest. After bitter debate, it was shot down by a
stronghold of wilderness advocates who still fought exploitive power.

Undeterred, MWA entered collaborative deals with the timber industry
affecting millions of acres of Montana roadless areas. The
Beaverhead-Deerlodge Partnership got Sen. Jon Tester to include mandated
logging targets. This controversial bill couldn't pass Congressional muster.

But with seduction of Big Money, MWA became part of collaborationist
deal-making on the Kootenai, Flathead, Lolo and Gallatin National Forests.
They've become a highly paid tool of the timber industry,
motorized/mechanized groups and elected officials. The collaborative MWA is
working to weaken protections for wilderness and wildlife on our national
forests. In fact, if not for the National Forest Roadless Rule, MWA may
well have dealt away the better part of Montana's roadless heritage.

In an effort to correct this trend, several former MWA Council and
Executive Committee Members agreed to participate in the Council of Elders,
to provide advice and leadership. For several years this Council was
marginalized and had minimal effect on policy and was recently ended by
MWA. They apparently realized they have no need for counsel from their
elders, as they get their money and ideology elsewhere.

While we intend no offense to him personally, the fact MWA's new executive
director had never been to Montana until after being hired speaks volumes
to how much MWA has changed. Personal knowledge of the land and people are
undervalued. Fundraising is king.

What has befallen MWA in its ideological transformation and perhaps most
troubling is that MWA has effectively become a politico-economic operation,
reproducing recreationist and "shared-use" land values, advancing the
agendas of elected officials and their timber and motorized-mechanized
partners.

These developments lead us to conclude the Montana Wilderness Association,
years down its compromise road, must be held accountable by its membership
who must challenge an entrenched power structure within. Former MWA
President Joseph Scalia, in 2015 Great Falls Tribune Guest Opinion, decried
MWA's ideological betrayal of guardianship of wild lands; since then, MWA
has continued to refrain from the uncomfortable work of fighting one's
neighbor's exploitations.

There are still fine conservation organizations that reject the misleading
rhetoric put forth by the collaborationists. Montana Wilderness Association
has not been one of them for some number of years now.

Joseph Scalia III, Livingston, and Paul Richards, Boulder, are past
Presidents of the Montana Wilderness Association. Patty Ames, Cass Chinske
and Lance Olsen, Missoula, Mike Jarnevic, Piltzville, Keith Hammer,
Kalispell, George Wuerthner, Livingston, Larry Campbell, Darby, Steve
Kelly, Bozeman, and Paul Edwards, Helena, are former members of the Montana
Wilderness Association state council and Executive Committee.
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