Montana Wilderness News

Students lined the wall Wednesday to speak in support of two environmental resolutions before ASUM, but after public comment, the student senate delayed debate on the issues for nearly three hours because of disagreements about travel funding requests.

Five hours into the meeting, President Matt Fennell asked senators to move forward with the 18 requests to discuss the resolutions.

"We had a lot of students show up to support these resolutions," Fennell said. "This has gone beyond absurd. We need to compromise now."

When letters and phone calls started trickling in about Sen. Jon Tester's Saturday forest bill meeting in Dillon, we decided to investigate.

Tester behaved badly, according to his critics. He stayed only long enough to sing the praises of his Forest Jobs and Recreation Act, refused to take comments from the crowd and then hightailed it to Helena for seemingly more important pursuits — the coin toss at the Carroll-Western football game.

BOZEMAN - U.S. Sen. Jon Tester, pitching his large forest bill to a packed room at the courthouse here, said it needs to both create more logging and more wilderness area in order to get enough political support to pass.

Tester said his plan will break through years of gridlock over logging by mandating Forest Service action. And it will add 600,000 acres of Montana wilderness - while sacrificing a very small percentage of motorized areas and trails, the Democrat said.

BOZEMAN-Ed Regan, resource manager for RY Timber, supports U.S. Sen. Jon Tester's forestry bill and he told a crowd at the Gallatin County Courthouse why during the senator's visit to Bozeman Monday.

With mills in Townsend, Deer Lodge and Livingston, RY produces about 20 percent of all the timber shipped out of Montana, he said.

DILLON - Montana's Sen. Jon Tester gave a presentation on a controversial forest bill here that packed in supporters and opponents of the wilderness-for- logging measure, and drewstrong responses from both sides.

More than 350 people showed up at the Beier Auditorium on the University of Montana Western campus Saturday to hear directly from Tester about his bill. The visit came after monthsof criticism from wilderness opponents that Tester was trying to ram the bill through without hearing from people who live in the county most affected by the bill.

President Theodore Roosevelt, perhaps the most influential conservationist in American history, argued equally that "attention must be directed to the preservation of the forests" and that our forests should be "the means of preserving and increasing the prosperity of the nation."

HELENA - U.S. Sen. Jon Tester, preparing for public meetings on his proposal to expand wilderness and logging, is releasing new maps to ease fears among off-road enthusiasts that the

plan would close prized trails. Tester said Friday his "Forest Jobs and Recreation Act" closes hardly any summer trails. His staff was putting up new maps showing the impact on trails at motorcycle, ATV andsnow-mobile shops in Butte.

I was blessed to be born in northwestern Montana and to grow up in the middle of the majestic and towering forests surrounding Libby. I loved those trees then and, like so many Americans, I love them even more now. My ancestors were involved with logging for a very long time, starting with my grandfather, a logging camp cook who came to Montana with a timber company from Minnesota early on in the last century before the advent of logging trucks.

When I read a recent article about Sen. Jon Tester's "Forest Jobs and Recreation Act" and how it all started, I can't understand what is being criticized. For decades, Montana's loggers, conservationists and motorized users have been in serious conflict. As the article said, over the last 25 years there has been no new wilderness and no logs for the mills. Because of the timber wars, management became stagnant - nothing changed to alleviate these contentious issues.

As Sen. Tester's bill, the Forest Jobs and Recreation Act, receives more and more attention - even amidst our national health care crisis - I am increasingly impressed. In a recent Independent Record article, Senator Tester articulated why Montana needs such a bill.

Much of what we treasure in Montana is at stake. Just one look at the brown trees between Helena and Butte tells us that massive wildfires threaten our communities. Driving down the main streets of Deer Lodge or Townsend tells us that Montana's timber towns have seen better times.