Coming to a wilderness area near you: ATVs

by: Eric B.

Fri Jan 13, 2012 at 11:43:54 AM EST

The Upper Peninsula has benefited like no other part of the state from the important work of past Congresses to place off limits from development a few shreds of land, mostly around unique natural features. Mining may have once defined the Upper Peninsula, but to most of us trolls it's now a recreation paradise. One of the most important laws that has helped promote this was the Wilderness Act of 1964, which was intended to identify the most unique of the nation's natural features and recognize that they have a value all their own that can't be quantified in a way that Babbitt nation can recognize -- intrinsic aesthetics. The crux of the law is that there are places in the United States which will, going forward, be untrammeled by permanent buildings or the roar of engines.

Dan Benishek, thankfully, has apparently recognized that this sort of thinking is outdated, and wants to open up the nation's wilderness areas to the sorts of ORVs and other pollution-spewing machines that have made the air in our most popular national parks so bad to breath. I give you the Recreational Fishing and Hunting Heritage Opportunities Act.

(1) The provision of opportunities for hunting, fishing and recreational shooting, and the conservation of fish and wildlife to provide sustainable use recreational opportunities on designated wilderness areas on Federal public lands shall constitute measures necessary to meet the minimum requirements for the administration of the wilderness area.

(2) The ‘within and supplemental to’ Wilderness purposes, as provided in Public Law 88-577, section 4(c), means that any requirements imposed by that Act shall be implemented only insofar as they facilitate or enhance the original or primary purpose or purposes for which the Federal public lands or Federal public land unit was established and do not materially interfere with or hinder such purpose or purposes.

The primary purpose of the Wilderness Act was to create "units of land" on which people could go without worry that they might have to have modern, mechanized society imposed upon them by some thoughtless asshole who, when he looks at nature, sees mostly just stuff he wants to drive across or animals to kill. The idea that you'd allow people to use ORVs to facilitate hunting in a wilderness area violates the very basic spirit of it. And, really, frankly, if you wanted to get all "heritage" about it, you'd require that people pack in supplies on mules and horses, since that's what they had to do before the internal combustion engine.

It might not strike the typical Michigander as a really big deal. After all, I doubt most people -- even those who claim to enjoy recreating outside -- understand the difference between a national park and a wilderness area. It's kind of insider baseball for the wilderness preservation movement. It's also the source of long-standing tensions, especially out West, where they have genuine concern to keep mechanized vehicles out of certain places because they can cause genuine damage to the ecosystem through clumsy use (cryptobiotic soil, we're looking in your general direction, sir). This is a white wash of that.