Wilderness alert from SUWA

“Here's an alert that I copied from email received today from SUWA (Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance). It talks about the NPS wanting comments on re-opening Salt Creek are in Canyonlands (Needles area) to ORVers. Also talks about the President wanting to drill for oil in the Grand Staircase - Escalante National Monument -- playing off the "energy crisis" in CA. If you're interested in these topics, give it a look.

Wilderness Alert from SUWA”

“Let the partisan bickering begin?”

“It is good to be concerned but these areas are not wilderness, they are a park and a monument. If they were federally designated wilderness these things would not be considered at all. If you want wilderness fight for wilderness designation. Parks, monuments, recreation areas, wildlife refuges are not wilderness and may at any time be open to these types of proposals.”

“We have our first taker. Which of you liberals out there cares to challenge?”

“Ken, how do you read what I wrote as a defense for ORV and oil drilling? I was just saying you need to get the designation on the land that meets your goals. Park or Monument ain?t it.”

“I'm keeping neutral on this one. You can think of me as the Swiss. No, wait. They have gun control. Think of me as the Swiss who say that they'll get my grenade launcher when the pry it from my cold, dead hands.”

“Ken ? can you get one of those swiss army knifes with a launcher on it for me? Is the swiss army like the Boy Scouts?”

“LOL. What would you use more on your sak -- the corkscrew or the grenade launcher? And I believe that the swiss army probably closer resembles that explorers than the boy scouts.”

“I don't get why Bush does what he does. Maybe he knows he has no hope for reelection so he's gonna do as much dammage as he can in office.”

“And we have our challenger.”

“mtn gal, when I think of wilderness I don't automatically think of the true technical definition of the word - to me wilderness = wild places, whether they be designated as a np, nm, blm land or whatever. Having a particular interest in the state of Utah and having hiked into the depths of its canyons, I don't want to see the land destroyed by oil and mining interests or, for that matter, hikers who maliciously deface rock art or ORVers who have no respect for the land. The Red Rock Wilderness bill (for wilderness designation) has been floating around for years and covers blm land that ajoins many of the parks and monuments already established.
It seems to me that all wild areas are now under attack and we need to be more active than ever in voicing our opinions. Thus, I posted for those who might be interested as well.”

“Who'll join Mtn Gal? It's two against one, which isn't fair even to the democrats!”

“That is my point. You can battle over every little agency decision to keep it defacto wilderness or go for the ?wilderness? designation and be done with it. Ya, it is a bigger battle to get it designated wilderness but it is a win that will last. The ORV in canyon lands is a good example. They were permitted years ago, a court battle got them banned. Now you get to fight the same battle again. Do it right the first time. By the way I am not a fan of our National Parks concept.”

“Speaking of rock art, this is interesting:

Rock Art online magazine

(again testing my linking abilities here. Tried THIS one without even looking at a sample for help. Here's hoping it works!!)

What I really hate in that part of Utah is the stupid county governments --seemingly egged on by the state and then Utah's stupid non-preservationist U.S. officials! -- to go make roads, etc., in the areas. Cuz as we all know, supposedly roads preclude wilderness designation.

Did you read the article in the recent issue of National Geographic's Adventure mag? Some guy is gonna publish a book giving SPECIFIC locations of ancient dwellings in Utah (no, not your momma's, but Anasazi/Ancient Puebloan). Includes rock art, I'm sure. People are in an uproar! It seems those that go to the effort of finding such remote locations today are the type that appreciate what they find and leave it alone.

At first this guy was gonna put GPS COORDINATES(!!) in his book as to locations. Now it sounds like he's been shamed into not doing that, but will still give very good directions.

That's almost as bad as drilling for oil!!

Here's a link for their website. I see they only give the beginning of the story (and the actual story to which I refer was a sidebar to the main story)

Latest from N'tl Geo. Adventure magazine”

“Wow...........that's one REALLY LONG first link, which does work. (don't know why it's soooooooo long!)

And the second one works too!”

“Thanks for the links, Lizs, they are great and I set them up under my favs. Now, here's the ultimate rock art defilement! Saw this on private property in Nine Mile Canyon near Price, UT. A great place although it's about a 50 mile drive in and then you turn around and go back out. However, it has an unbelievable amount of rock art, some was even featured in national geographic. Take a look:

Nine Mile Canyon Rock Art”

“Neat.........and too d@mn bad about what some people do!!

It was fun on that rock art site to glance through the archives. I found something posted that was an ongoing set of e-mails about rock art they'd discovered. (NO, no locations given..... that stuff was XXXXed out of the transcript.)

Anyway, they said it was akin to what resarchers in the field would say when discussing possible meanings/interpretations to the work. I hadn't even considered a lot of the stuff they got into..... and the different periods it's from.”

“what do they consider an orv? Better not be a mountain bike. IF that day comes, they'll have to pry the bike out my cold dead fingers.”

“mtn_gal, you make a good point, and that's one reason why a lot of groups like SUWA do push for wilderness status for areas like this. But it's also true that the meaning of 'National Monument' and 'National Park' designation is fluid, and evolves over time depending not just on statute but on de facto use. When 'National Monument' designation was first created, it explicitly permitted mining; over the years, it evolved into a more preservationist designation. Similarly, National Parks were originally conceived more for entertainment & recreation than for preservation, but have evolved to embrace a mission of ecosystem preservation. So SUWA is fighting on a second front, trying to defend what they see as proper management of National Parks and Monuments.”