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The Nevada Appeal published the following
Op-Ed on Sunday, June 1st, by the Coalition for Public Access's Mineral
County Liason, Sue Silver.
Nevadans should wake up and stop wilderness proposal
Sue Silver
Guest columnist
June 1, 2008
Somewhere between "Don't litter or you'll pollute
the environment" (about the 1960s) and today, where purported
non-profit environmental corporations (now financially supported by
some of America's most prominent businesses) are robbing Americans of
millions of acres of public land on which to recreate, many of us must
have been sleeping. More likely, though, we were struggling to make it
day to day, month to month or year to year, as we raised our families
and served as good citizens in our communities. We believed others were
waging battles to protect our freedom, liberties and the overall
balance of power.
In light of the controversy in several rural
Nevada counties over what some term as a "land grab" on the part of the
federal government driven by environmental organizations, it now seems
that being good and productive citizens won't be enough to protect or
preserve our rights to the use of our "public lands."
The
Wilderness Act of 1964 was enacted by Congress to protect areas of the
country that were at that time pristine areas of the nation's national
forest system. The act is actively being used as a weapon against
average Americans and their outdoor pastimes by the environmental
elitists who believe they are better than the rest of us. Their
"vision," they will have you believe, is that America must be returned
to the condition it was before our ancestors ever touched foot on the
continent .
Fueled by a manifest penned by former Earth First!
member, Dave Foreman, titled, "The Wildlands Project," these activists
with the now well-greased environmental corporations are committed to
returning no less than 50 percent of the lands of the United States
back to wilderness. Mankind will be restricted to pockets of urbanized
population blessed only with the right to "pass through" the wilderness
areas. (See www.rangemagazine.com/specialreports/05-fall- taking-liberty.pdf.)
Between 1989 and 2006, while we were sleeping the Friends of Nevada
Wilderness, the Nevada Wilderness Project and the all-encompassing
Nature Conservancy, have locked down over two and a half million more
acres of public lands to "Wilderness Area" designation by Congress.
Since
February, residents of Mineral, Esmeralda and Lyon counties have been
fighting off a new lands bill proposal by Senators Harry Reid and John
Ensign that includes a proposal for 1.4 million acres of wilderness.
Residents
were told that the lands bill is not tied to a water bill Reid promises
he'll get to help save Walker Lake. He then said the bill likely will
include the appropriations for Walker Lake water.
Residents
were told that a lands bill must include "Wilderness Areas," even
though there is no law that requires wilderness be part of these
purportedly beneficial land bills.
Residents of Lyon and Mineral
counties had less than three months to either thwart that effort or
acquiesce to the "hand out" of other aspects of the land bill offered
by OUR elected officials - OUR EMPLOYEES. On April 17, Lyon County
officially told the delegation "No thanks." Mineral County is headed
that way.
The environmentalists have gone from those trying to
educate America as to ways it was polluting the earth to being a
steamroller hellbent to have it all, and they do not care if they
bankrupt entire communities in the process.
Now they are at our back doors and threatening our access to our own "backyards." It is time to wake up!
Don't
be lulled with talk of "compromise," as they are quoted as saying. To
them compromise means, we ask for WAY MORE than we really want right
now and then we negotiate and "compromise" to an area "We, the people"
will think is a better deal than that originally sought. Such a deal!
They get what they wanted in the first place and we try to convince
ourselves that we didn't lose as much as we could have.
This
affects all Nevadans and all those who come to our backyards to
recreate, hunt or fish. It also happens to those whose livings are tied
to the land. It affects the economies of the counties and the state.
Don't
be placated by the argument that the land is remote, therefore it must
be wilderness. For over 145 years, Nevada's lands have been tramped
upon, prospected, towns settled, towns deserted and graveyards left
behind.
What part of that activity could possibly have left "wilderness," unaffected by man?
In
the end, this really isn't about the loss of millions of acres of land
that we all enjoy playing or working in, it is about the loss of
LIBERTY, the right to determine our own destinies and the destiny of
the land that we love and call home. The citizens of Lyon, Mineral,
Esmeralda counties,have heard the alarm clock ringing and have
awakened.
To the remainder of Nevada not yet affected, this
environmental frenzy of creating "Wilderness Areas" where there is none
must be stopped and counties must be left in control of what affects
the public lands within their boundaries.
Your alarm clock is also ringing. Wake up!
• Sue Silver of Hawthorne is the Mineral County Liaison for the Coalition for Public Access.
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