Darrell Knuffke, Wilderness Society

"Statement of Darrell Knuffke on Wilderness"
IMPLEMENTATION OF WILDERNESS ACT OVERSIGHT HEARING

EXPLORING THE IMPLEMENTATION OF THE 1964 WILDERNESS ACT BY THE FOREST SERVICE, THE BUREAU OF LAND MANAGEMENT, AND THE NATIONAL PARK SERVICE APRIL 15, 1997--WASHINGTON, DC

STATEMENT OF DARRELL KNUFFKE, WESTERN REGIONAL DIRECTOR, THE WILDERNESS SOCIETY

  Mr. KNUFFKE. Thank you, ma'am. Members of the panel, thank you for giving us the opportunity to be here today.

  My name is Darrell Knuffke. I am the Western Outreach Director for The Wilderness Society, and we represent 320,000 members across the country.

  After hearing the first panel, I believe I should quickly say I am an avid hunter and an avid angler, and I was last on a snow machine 3 weeks ago going ice fishing.

  We are here today to talk about wilderness and how we manage these special places. I think that discussion needs a context, and the context must be the national wilderness preservation system. And I would like to make three points about that.

  The national wilderness preservation system is the national treasure protecting some of the most rugged and beautiful landscapes as well as some of the most intact and productive biological systems left on the planet. Americans are drawn to our wilderness areas, many of which are fragile and can be damaged if they are not managed carefully and sensibly, protected from motorized use and other threats.

  Third, the protection of our wilderness resources for the ''American people of present and future generations,'' those last words from the Wilderness Act itself, will require strong, consistent enforcement applied fairly and equally to all persons regardless of rank or status.

  It was 50 years ago this year that Aldo Leopold was completing work on his Sand County Almanac. That work has shaped a half century of conservation thought in this country. It was Sand County Almanac that gave us what we have come to call the land ethic. In one essay, entitled, ''The Ecological Conscience,'' Leopold said this to us: ''A thing is right only when it tends to preserve the integrity, stability and beauty of the community, and the community includes the soil, waters, fauna and flora as well as the people.'' The highest expression of that ideal in our mind is the national wilderness preservation system.

  For all its apparent size and ruggedness, our wild land resource is a fragile one, the threats to it are many and varied, and our own love of wilderness and eagerness to use it are very near the top of that list. Wilderness popularity grows, and by that I mean both the number of Americans who support the idea of wilderness as well as those who choose to directly use the wilderness.

  It is worth noting that we are here today at least partly in response to events that involve people going into their wilderness areas, perhaps inadvertently and ill-equipped, perhaps ill-advised or even illegally, but make no mistake, they were drawn to their wilderness; millions of Americans are.

  It is also true that some don't love wilderness, think we have too much set aside and don't want more of it, and they also argue occasionally that wilderness is somehow antipeople. When the Congress passed the Wilderness Act of 1964, it didn't think so and we don't, either. The Congress explained its decision in 1964 using these words, ''to secure for the American people of present and future generations the benefits of an enduring resource of wilderness.''
BR>   Wilderness, then, is for people, for us as an idea to embrace and use, but wilderness is not first and only for direct human use, and when we enter it we must do so on its terms, not ours, and in ways to protect and respect two things very specifically. The first is the integrity of the wilderness itself, and the second is the ability of everybody else who wants to go there to have what we call a wilderness experience.

  At the threshold, then, wilderness is a place without motors, deliberately and specifically without motors, but not slavishly without motors, not insanely and insensitively without motors. When human health and safety are at issue, that ideal must stand aside, and it does. There is sufficient flexibility in the Wilderness Act to allow this, sufficient flexibility in the agency's regulations to implement it, and I think it is worth noting, particularly on the heels of Mr. Unser's testimony, Mrs. Chenoweth, that the issue is not whether the Forest Service permitted a motorized search for Mr. Unser and his friend. It did so without delay.

  The question in that case is whether or not Mr. Unser was in a wilderness area, with a motorized vehicle, deliberately or inadvertently. I think that is the issue. Unfortunately, I think we are hearing only one side of that, because the Forest Service is somewhat constrained because the issue is now before a Federal magistrate.

  So what we know of it we know anecdotally, from press reports, we have Mr. Unser's account and it was a harrowing story, no doubt about that. I grew up in Colorado. I know something about mountain winters. I think the fear was real, the danger was real. We are glad he came out. The question is how did he go in.

  I would be happy to answer questions, if I can.

  Mrs. CHENOWETH. Thank you. Thank you very much for that good testimony, and I agree with you, I think we will just wait and see what the court comes up with.

  [The statement of Mr. Knuffke may be found at end of hearing.]

  Mrs. CHENOWETH. I noticed in the wilderness preservation, the Wilderness Act of 1964, it does exclude emergencies from the strict concepts of wilderness management or nonmanagement, and while the Unser story is dramatic, yes, and it made a point, my concern has been that there have been other incidents such as a Boy Scout who was lost and apparently ran away from home and got into mischief, but even though he ran away from home and was in mischief in the wilderness, his life is as valuable as any other human being's. I was appalled that the helicopter could not land and bring that boy back to his parents.

  So as I listened very carefully to both of your testimony, I think that there are many areas that we can agree on in trying to focus the public policy implementation that we are both concerned about, and I want to personally thank you for your patience and perseverance in this 4-plus hour hearing so far. Thank you very much.

  Mr. Nickas, you have come all the way from Missoula, Montana. Tell me what you feel. Did you serve in the armed forces at all?

  Mr. NICKAS. No, I didn't.

  Mrs. CHENOWETH. And that really doesn't make any difference to the substance in this hearing, but I did wonder about what your feelings would be with regard to a veteran being allowed to display the American flag. How would you feel about that personally?

  Mr. NICKAS. I would feel the same for a veteran as anybody else who wanted to display the American flag. I don't know about the particulars in that instance, it may be that the flag was being used in a way or flown in a way that interfered with others' wilderness experience. I can envision a huge flag sitting on the edge of a lake, and the other people who came to that lake perhaps came to the wilderness in order to get away from the sights and sounds of other people, and there was a concern that it might be interfering with other people's use.

  There are programs called Leave No Trace and Soft Paths, and there are educational programs for wilderness users, and they talk about things like even trying to get away from buying brightly colored backpack equipment, because you get up in an alpine basin, and a bright green tent across the basin is seen by everybody. Most people want to go to the wilderness to get away. They want to be with the people they go with and don't want to encounter other groups. So you have to be sensitive to that when you are in the wilderness. And it may have been it was being done in a very insensitive manner.

  I am sure if he was displaying a little American flag or had an American flag on his backpack or shoulder or something like that, I doubt there would be any issue involved here. So let's find out more about that one.

  Mrs. CHENOWETH. Thank you, Mr. Nickas.