Montana’s letters and editorial pages have been flooded with praise for Sen. Jon Tester’s “Forest Jobs and Recreation Act,” or FJRA.
Well, here’s some criticism: To begin, the name is all wrong. FJRA is first, foremost and only a wilderness bill, which would immediately lock away a million acres (660,000 acres of big-W wilderness and another 300,000 or so of “recreation areas”) from all uses except primitive recreation.
In return for this million-acre lockup, FJRA’s propagandists promise a tidal wave of “Jobs and Recreation” to follow — someday, maybe, perhaps — an empty promise.
Ranchers know from bitter experience that grazing rights always go backwards after wilderness designations. Mining, in some of the most mineral rich areas of Montana? Never — forever.
Nor does wilderness do “Jobs” through “Recreation.” Never has, never will. Only 2 percent of public land recreation visitor days are “primitive recreation” based — and fully half are hunters. FJRA would write off the other 98 percent, who use wheels and motors for modern recreation, as potential customers and visitors — a terrible business model. Continue reading
