Wilderness group to meet in Montana
HELENA – A fortified Montana Wilderness Association will convene here next week, buoyed by rising membership and focusing on potential new wilderness designations, now that Rocky Mountain Front gas exploration is no longer a hot issue.
With membership nearly doubling to more than 5,000 in the past three years, the association is seeing the fruits of a strategic plan aiming to expand and raise recognition of the group statewide, leaders say. A new logo featuring mountain peaks, sun rays and the dictum “Keep It Wild!” recently debuted on the association’s publications and will be on banners, flyers, coffee mugs, T-shirts and more at the three-day convention opening Friday.
Raising the Montana Wilderness Association’s profile “is meant to increase our effectiveness, to make us stronger advocates for protecting Montana wildlands,” said Lex Hames, communications director and one of 17 employees in the organization, which also draws on volunteer work. Annual revenue tops $1 million a year through dues, donations and grants from foundations. That compares with $640,000 in 2001.
The convention will start just two months after the Bush administration announced natural-gas exploration on Montana’s Rocky Mountain Front will be off limits for at least four years, until a study of the area is complete. Preventing drilling along the rugged Front, where the mountains meet the plains, has been a leading goal of association.
Now, its attention is on winning federal action to increase the amount of Montana land officially designated wilderness.
“We haven’t had a wilderness bill in a long time, decades,” said Gerry Jennings, the group’s president. “We feel that we have some wonderful federal lands that would be appropriate for wilderness.”
Putting wilderness legislation before Congress and advancing it requires first “communicating with people, educating people” to build public support, Jennings said, adding many “think anything that looks somewhat wild is protected.”
The president of the Western Environmental Trade Association, an industry coalition, prefers education of another kind. People need to be informed about advances in technology that allow industrial use of natural resources with minimal affect on the environment, said Don Serba, of Missoula.
“We have enough wilderness in Montana at this time,” Serba said. “I want people to be able to use the land – use it, not abuse it. It can be used right, and … people can get enjoyment from it and make a living from it without locking it up.”
The Western Environmental Trade Association finds wilderness valuable, said Executive Director Don Allen, “but how much is enough?”
To expand communication with the public, the Montana Wilderness Association is breaking with past practice and allowing nonmembers to attend the convention if they want to hear certain speakers, Hames said. Donations will be suggested, he added.