Two Million and Counting
Washington, DC -- Back when I wrote my book Strategic Ignorance, in the spring of 2004, George Bush had stripped one or more layers of environmental protection from over 100 million acres. That's more land than Teddy Roosevelt, the king of the protectors, had saved in two terms.
But the environmental community, Congress, and the courts fought back. At the end of Bush's term, the 57 million acres of roadless national forest that he wanted to log were still intact. And the rules that protected those lands, although in legal limbo, were clawing their way back. Big swaths of critical endangered-species habitat that had lost their designation at the behest of Julie MacDonald, the developers' friend in the Department of the Interior, were back on the list because of the scandal over MacDonald's corruption of science. Courts had repeatedly intervened to restore Clinton-era protections and rules for the rest of the national forests.
Still, when Barack Obama took his oath of office, tens of millions of acres that had been protected in 2000 remained vulnerable to commercial degradation.
Well, this week, we've enhanced our children's wild heritage by another 2 million acres -- the first step in resuming the previously unbroken history that each president left more wild lands protected than he had inherited. Congress has passed, and President Obama has eagerly seized the chance to sign, a monumental lands protection bill -- more than 2 million acres of new wilderness.
The bill protects more wilderness in nine states, including in the California's Sierra Nevada, Oregon's Mt. Hood, and Colorado's Rocky Mountain National Park.
It also shelters over a million acres of key hunting and fishing grounds on the Wyoming Range from oil and gas drilling.
Finally, the legislation protects hundreds of miles of free-flowing rivers in six states, and designates numerous new National Scenic Trails, Natural Historic Sites, and National Heritage Areas across the United States.
Wild America is on the way back!
