Kevin Proescholdt: Why chainsaws in wilderness matter

By Kevin Proescholdt

Rich Landers reported somewhat disparagingly about the U.S. Forest Service’s decision to deny approval for the use of chainsaws to clear trails in the Pasayten Wilderness (“Forest Service denies pleas to chainsaw logjams in Pasayten Wilderness,” June 23). Readers deserve to know why the Forest Service decision is the right one, and why chainsaws don’t belong in designated wilderness.

Bill Worf, the Forest Service’s first wilderness program leader and Wilderness Watch’s founder, liked to tell the story of when shortly after the Wilderness Act passed in 1964, engineers at the Forest Service Development and Technology Center expressed interest in developing a “silent” chainsaw. Their rationale was that if the newly passed Wilderness Act prohibited noisy machines, a really well-muffled chainsaw would pass muster since only the operator would hear it. Bill told them not to bother – the Wilderness Act didn’t ban motorized equipment simply because it made noise, but rather because it represented a level of technology that was not in keeping with the ideals of the Wilderness Act.

Bill would have known. He served on the Forest Service task force that wrote the first regulations and policies for implementing the Wilderness Act. Prior to that, as Forest Supervisor overseeing the Bridger Wilderness in northwest Wyoming, he had the opportunity to lead wilderness bill author Howard Zahniser on a trip into the Bridger. Bill credited his time with Zahniser with helping him to understand that wilderness isn’t merely an undeveloped recreation area, but a place we accept on its own terms – with a commitment to humility and restraint. This means using only the lightest touch when allowing for the public uses (recreation, science, education, etc.) that wilderness provides.

Congress prohibited chainsaws because motorized tools are the antithesis of restraint – they allow humans to transform the landscape quickly and easily to meet our ends rather than transforming our own attitudes and desires to accommodate the wilderness. Chainsaws embody the attitude that our convenience, impatience, and demands come first, that no place is beyond the reach of our attempts to dominate and control.

Authorizing chainsaws to clear trails, as some groups want in the Pasayten Wilderness, would strike a blow to this foundational tenet of the Wilderness Act. That’s why Wilderness Watch supports this Forest Service decision to deny such use.

In addition to the foundational reasons, a big part of visiting wilderness is that you meet and experience wilderness on its terms, not our terms. Visitors may not be able to access everywhere they might want right now due to blowdown on trails, but that, too, is part of a wilderness experience. We shouldn’t diminish or degrade the Pasayten Wilderness with chainsaw use just to speed up trail clearing. Rather we should let the Forest Service and volunteers clear the trails by traditional means instead of diminishing the Pasayten’s wilderness character with chainsaws.

Yes, the Forest Service has unfortunately reduced its wilderness ranger staff all across the country–largely because of a lack of funding from Congress–so there aren’t enough professional boots on the ground to quickly clear the trails. And yes, some of the blowdowns on Pasayten Wilderness trails are thick and very dangerous and need professionals to cut them out. But people value the Pasayten Wilderness for its essential wildness, and we mustn’t degrade that wildness just for a quick fix.

So we applaud the Forest Service decision to deny chainsaw use in the Pasayten Wilderness. Those who want the quick work of chainsaws there should remember what wilderness is all about and why chainsaws don’t belong there. With patience, the wild character of the Pasayten Wilderness will then be preserved for current and future generations.

Kevin Proescholdt is the conservation director for Wilderness Watch (www.wildernesswatch.org.