As part of developing its backcountry access plan, Big Cypress National Preserve in Florida will also conduct a wilderness eligibility assessment for lands within the original boundaries of the preserve.
The Preserve first initiated public scoping for the backcountry access plan in the fall of 2013.
“Public comments received during the scoping period recognized a need for the Preserve to identify areas eligible for Wilderness designation as a part of this planning effort to identify off-road vehicle (ORV) secondary trails, non-motorized trails, and a camping management approach within the Preserve. This step is consistent with National Park Service policy and is necessary to ensure a thorough and defensible planning process,” Superintendent Pedro Ramos said last week in announcing the assessment.
National Park Service lands are considered eligible for wilderness if they are at least 5,000 acres or of sufficient size to make practicable their preservation and use in an unimpaired condition, and if they possess wilderness characteristics (as identified in the Wilderness Act of 1964). The wilderness eligibility assessment process is anticipated to take 4 to 6 months and the final eligibility determination will be announced through an additional press release and by publication in the Federal Register.
Big Cypress officials, including Superintendent Ramos, have been criticized over their handling of past wilderness assessments associated with the Additional Lands. The Addition Lands had been closed to both ORV use and ORV-assisted hunting ever since they came to the preserve in 1996 while officials worked on developing a management plan for the area. After announcing in their 2009 Draft General Management Plan for the Addition that approximately 109,000 acres were “wilderness eligible,” the NPS subsequently conducted a “re-assessment” completely outside of public view and which concluded that only 71,000 acres were eligible and recommended just 47,000 acres be proposed to Congress as future wilderness, according to opponents.
“This suit is necessary because the Park Service improperly rewrote wilderness mapping to produce a result which had been decided behind closed doors,”Jeff Ruch, executive director of Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility, said at the time. “We expected better of the Park Service under this administration and, thus far, we have been sorely disappointed.”
Comments
Without any tangible benefits?
You mean the preservation of a few almost really wild places produce no tangible benefits?
What was it Wallace Stegner said? "“[The modern age] knows nothing about isolation and nothing about silence. In our quietest and loneliest hour the automatic ice-maker in the refrigerator will cluck and drop an ice cube, the automatic dishwasher will sigh through its changes, a plane will drone over, the nearest freeway will vibrate the air. Red and white lights will pass in the sky, lights will shine along highways and glance off windows. There is always a radio that can be turned to some all-night station, or a television set to turn artificial moonlight into the flickering images of the late show. We can put on a turntable whatever consolation we most respond to, Mozart or Copland or the Grateful Dead.”
― Wallace Stegner, Angle of Repose
As for me, I hope we will be able to prevent those who simply cannot, or will not, understand what wildness really is from destroying it before my great grandchildren may experience it. I believe Stegner was exactly right when he wrote:
"Something will have gone out of us as a people if we ever let the remaining wilderness be destroyed; if we permit the last virgin forests to be turned into comic books and plastic cigarette cases; if we drive the few remaining members of the wild species into zoos or to extinction; if we pollute the last clear air and dirty the last clean streams and push our paved roads through the last of the silence, so that never again will Americans be free in their own country from the noise, the exhausts, the stinks of human and automotive waste . . . ”
What exactly, is a tangible benefit? Can a tangible benefit be something deep within the human heart and mind that simply cannot be defined? That, to me, is what wildness is really all about and why it must be preserved.
"Without tangible benefits..." - perhaps a confession, from those too numb to perceive the intangible benefits of wilderness. If you get it, you don't need more explanation. If you can't get it, words alone will not be enough to enlighten you.
This argument is both circular and quite funny. Let's go through the argument timeline
I make a negative judgement on wilderness
I'm being told that I'm not cogent enough
I make a cogent pointed argument
You answer by quoting authors and not addressing my salient points.
Throughout this thread, it's going back to a forced choice between Wilderness and land development, while completing avoiding the fact (because that takes the whole Wilderness argument down...) that there are other land designations that protect wilderness without being overly restrictive.
As for Gary, so you spend 3 months in the Bavarian Alps, and somehow you can make a judgement about all Europe... It's obvious that north America had more room for parks since there was more room, less people (especially after killing off the natives).
Trust me, i'm not the only one making that judgement on Europe. Even Europeans that I know make that judgement about their own lands when compared to the US, and other countries in places like Africa. Even David Attenborough talks about this subject in a few documentaries. And yes, European expansion did vastly alter Native American populations in the United States, and South America. However, Europe has had their chances, and now they are playing catch up by trying to restore ecosystems. At this point, it will take 300 to 400 years to rewild any considerable section of about 300,000 acres on the European continent outside of Scandanavia where the population density is much less.
And I did address many of your points, and you never commented about any of them, other than the part about the European continent. I posted an article that is based on facts, and observations about the Big Cypress and how ORV's altered them - You seem to have skirted that issue completely. So what is YOUR solution for the Big Cypress? Let it be like BLM lands? Just let people carve it up with ORVs and Jetboats? Who needs wilderness? It has no intrinsic value, and off with the cougar, since it's unnecessary? What's your solution for long term preservation?
Can you present solid concrete ideas? This board is filled with a lot of snipers, but never any ideas that lead the way and show a better path. It seems the sniper solutions are always one that erodes or destroys the natural values as a wildland. And yes, there is a difference between the wild areas and the urban areas in our country. Many of our national parks and wilderness areas fit the wildland criteria.
Gary,
Re. Europe. One needs to not ignore history. In 1900, there were about 1M inhabitants in CA, and the west was similarly sparsely populated. While carving out parks (national or not) was a stroke of genius, it was also made possible by the vast emptiness of the land, again especially after displacing and killing off the natives. Europe has not been in that situation since the 19th century. So, by default ,carving 1000 of square miles of land devoid of human presence is not exactly possible there.
As for your other points, your argumentation is nothing more than gross exxageration. Nobody calls for jetskis and ATVs everywhere. You need to read my posts more carefully.
Off to riding... maybe in Wilderness!!!
That's cool. In that case you are fine with wilderness.
Good luck on your wilderness ride!
One might want to visit the Big C and Addition Land before claiming they know what is possible there. Canoing - not much to none. And when one does carry a gun for the gators that like to play in a lethal manner.