The Bears Ears, Proposed National Monument, Utah                                                                  (Mike Painter)

 
October 2016

Dear CalUWild friends-

Last month I attended two events with our partner organizations, the Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance and Great Old Broads for Wilderness, visiting areas proposed for protection under America’s Red Rock Wilderness Act and a Bears Ears National Monument. We’ve written about both topics many times over the years. It was good to see the numbers of people dedicated to protecting our wild places in the West and spend time with them. Not much occurred in September or earlier this month, so I decided to wait with the Update for October. As you’ll see, a few items came up, including not guilty verdicts in the Oregon Bundy trial.

As year-end approaches, we traditionally send out our membership appeal, and we’ll be doing that next month and in December. Dues have never been required to receive CalUWild’s Monthly Update, but we do rely on support from our members to help pay expenses. If you’d like to help us save on printing and postage expenses for our mailing, you can send in a contribution ahead of time, mailing it to:

Dues payable to CalUWild are not tax-deductible, as they may be used for lobbying. If you’d like to make a tax-deductible contribution, please make your check payable to Resource Renewal Institute, CalUWild’s fiscal sponsor, and mail it to the address above. Please print out and enclose a membership form.

Thanks in advance!

Also, if anyone has access to a legitimate copy of Adobe Creative Suite that they would be willing to share, either on disc or by download key, it would be much appreciated. (It doesn’t have to be the latest version.) Photoshop and InDesign are important tools for our work, and our current versions are unusable on newer Mac OS machines.

Thanks, as always, for your support and interest!

 
Best wishes,
Mike

 
IN UTAH
1.   Bears Ears Monument Proposal
          Support Still Needed
          (ACTION ITEM)
2.   Zion National Park Visitor Use Planning
          DEADLINE: November 23
          (ACTION ITEM)

IN UTAH
1.   Bears Ears Monument Proposal
          Support Still Needed
          (ACTION ITEM)

The campaign for a presidential designation of the Bears Ears as a national monument continues. If you haven’t contacted the White House or Interior Secretary Sally Jewell, there’s still the opportunity to do that. And if you have, there’s no harm in repeating your request, since it is more important than ever to show support for public lands with the first Bundy trial over.

Another event highlighting the need for the designation took place this month when the State of Utah sold off a square-mile parcel of land included in the proposal to a private party. The buyer, Lyman Family Farms, has a history of buying lands near parks and protected areas, but it’s not clear what their intentions are. The Hole-in-the-Rock Foundation had nominated the parcel for sale, saying it wanted to run educational history programs there, but in the end, it was not the successful bidder.

Other threats to the area include vandalism to archaeological sites as well as oil and gas and mineral development.

Here is contact information for the Administration:

Here are two press items related to the Bears Ears:

 
2.   Zion National Park Visitor Use Planning
          DEADLINE: November 23
          (ACTION ITEM)

Visitation to the national parks has been hitting record numbers the last few years, especially in this 100th Anniversary year. Many of the parks are finding themselves at their limits, among them Zion in Utah. That park is beginning to develop a plan to manage visitor use and is seeking your input. Here is the Park’s announcement:

Visitor Use Management Plan and EA

Visitation to Zion National Park has been increasing for decades, but especially significant increases have been experienced in the last few years. In 2015, 3,662,220 people visited the park, which was 450,624 more visitors than in 2014 which was also a record year. The peak season in the park has now extended into early spring and late fall. During the height of the summer season it is now common for visitors to wait in long lines to enter the park and board the park shuttle. Parking is routinely full in the park by 9:30 a.m. daily which adds to the parking congestion in Springdale. This increase in visitation stresses park infrastructure, can degrade natural and cultural resources, and adversely affects the visitors’ park experience.

In order to address these issues the park is beginning a Visitor Use Management (VUM) planning process. Through the VUM process, park managers will devise measures to be taken that provide an enjoyable and safe visitor experience while protecting the park’s fundamental resources and values. Various measures will be tested and important information collected during the planning process to help inform the Plan.

The plan will focus on areas where the issues are most acute, principally the park’s front country areas, especially in Zion Canyon. However, due to the influence of any changes in the management of front country areas, the plan will need to analyze impacts associated with gateway communities and the park’s wilderness areas.

This collaborative process will include park partners; visitors; local, state, and federal agencies and governments; and the public. Continue to check this site throughout the process for planning updates for updates and how you can be involved.

More information, including the purpose and need, may be found on the Park Planning website. The page also includes possibilities for management schemes, including timed entry, reservations, elimination of first-come first-serve campsites, park entrance redesign, and more.

Comments should be submitted on this online form before midnight, November 23.

Comments may also be submitted by US Mail to:

 
IN OREGON
3.   Defendants in Malheur Refuge Occupation Case
          Found Not Guilty of Conspiracy

To the shock of just about everyone, defendants included, a jury in Portland returned verdicts of not guilty in the trial of Ammon and Ryan Bundy and five others. It seemed an open and shut case, given the very public nature of the 41-day occupation of the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge in southeast Oregon. In fact, some original defendants had pleaded guilty to those charges to avoid trial.

Conspiracy to prevent federal employees from doing their jobs was the main charge that the federal government brought against them, not trespass, firearms possession, or unauthorized use of government vehicles. Any of those would have been easily proven. Instead, it seems prosecutors went for a charge that carried a stiffer penalty. Unfortunately, it was one they couldn’t prove.

Ammon Bundy testified that the purpose of the occupation had nothing to do with the work of the Refuge; rather it was to make a point about supposed federal overreach. One juror, known only as Juror 4, sent a lengthy email to the Portland newspaper, The Oregonian, explaining that the verdict should not be seen as support for the Bundys, their actions, or their philosophy, but rather a sign that the prosecution was not able to prove its case that a conspiracy existed.

Other concerns for the jury included the FBI’s use of paid informants and the fact that all kinds of people, including politicians, were able to freely go to the Refuge during the occupation.

The Bundys still face charges in Nevada for their roles in the 2014 standoff outside Las Vegas. They were not released from custody, much to their lawyer’s dismay. He created such a scene in the courtroom that the federal marshals wound up using a taser on him.

More detailed information on Juror 4 and his comments may be found here, and a detailed analysis of the verdicts may be found here.

The controversy over federal agency management in the West is far from over, however, and we will continue to follow it and keep you informed.

 
IN GENERAL
4.   “Every Kid in a Park” Program Renewed

The National Park Service has extended its “Every Kid in a Park” program for a second year. The program gives fourth grade students, and those accompanying them, free access to more than 2,000 federally-managed lands and waters. Visit the program page to download the pass and obtain more information.

You may read the Interior Department’s announcement here.

 
5.   Great Old Broads for Wilderness Annual Online Auction
          October 30 – November 13
          (AUCTION ITEM)

It’s time for the Great Old Broads’ Online Auction, our sister organization’s annual fundraiser. Every year, there’s a wide variety of categories to choose from: art & photography, books, jewelry, outdoor adventure trips, vacation stays, and more.

CalUWild is happy to support the Broads in their efforts.

Click here to get started!

 
IN MEMORIAM
6.    Marge Sill, Advocate for Nevada Wilderness

Marge Sill, affectionately known to many of us as the “Mother of Nevada Wilderness,” died at her home in Reno last week at the age of 92. Marge was a tireless champion for protecting wilderness and public lands in Nevada and supported efforts in other states as well. She sometimes checked in here to let me know it was time for more news from Nevada, and it was always a pleasure to talk with her on the phone or at meetings.

Marge worked for nearly 50 years on wilderness and public lands protection, including the establishment of Great Basin National Park in eastern Nevada in 1986 and the passage of the Nevada Wilderness Protection Act of 1989, which established 13 wilderness areas. She lived a full life. To say she will be missed is an understatement.

 
IN THE PRESS & ELSEWHERE
7.   Links to Articles and Other Items of Interest

If a link is broken or otherwise inaccessible, please send me an email, and I’ll fix it or send you a PDF copy. As always, inclusion of an item in this section does not imply agreement with the viewpoint expressed.

Utah land grab — two articles in the Deseret News

Two Associated Press articles

 
 
 
 
 
 
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