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Show - Y~ 1445 N. 10 St. Manitowoc, Wisconsin 54220 October 27, 1978 Robert Rowan, Supervisor Ashley National Forest 437 E. Main St. Vernal, Utah 84078 Dear Mr. Rowan: I would like to comment on three issues in the Proposed High Uintas South Slope Land Management Plan and Draft EIS. As Co-Chairman of the Citizens for a Responsible CUP (Central Utah Project), I have prepared a separate statement, which is enclosed. As an early member of the High UintasU^/JU^A^U Coalition and a person responsible for helping determine the boundary lines for the Citizen's High Uintas Proposal, Di in the Plan, I will comment here and include opinions on wildlife related to both Wilderness and Multiple Use concepts. While understanding the need for the Forest Service to formulate some method for proceeding on its Roadless Area Review II, and its land planning, I find I get lost in the shuffle of starting to evaluate wilderness from a position of assessing the multiple resources and their uses on the Uinta Range and their incorporation into local economies as the starting point for this wilderness designation. I believe that these National Forest resources belong to the nation, as a whole, and I start from the premise of a long term national perspective. This does not say that local Interests are not of consequence. In passing the Wilderness Act, it was the hope and intent of its supporters, that the National Forests would be looked at in a perspective of protecting portions of these public forests intact and undeveloped while there was still time, for the use and enjoyment of the public in this undeveloped state. This would give the public opportunity to see and to understand the natural world operating under conditions where only processes of nature modify the land and its features, over time. The whole spectrum of natural action - geologic, climatic, vegetative, aquatic, biotic, terrestrial in form - and the interrelationships of these, can proceed, undirected,by Man, whatever his purpose. The production of any life form is not manipulated. The fires occurring there, burn and bring their own changes in plant succession, naturally, with their consequent changes in species of wildlife present. The public, then, must accept the particular resources available-at any given time in this natural progression. Hiking in the Uintas in 1978 I can see wildlife species my 2,078 counterpart may not^and he may benefit from changes I will not know. We both see and marvel at the Uintas - but each from variations. If we are students or scientists, the before and later ecological forms and developments are guidelines to the earth's existence in this particular place. This is the purpose of wilderness. Starting from this premise, I spent two entire |
