San Jose Mercury News
Published November 21, 2002

Senate OKs bill to protect Big Sur
WILDERNESS DECREE WOULD BAN LOGGING,
OTHER ACTIVITIES

By Paul Rogers Mercury News

The U.S. Senate on Wednesday approved designating 56,880 acres of canyons, streams, oak forests and other scenic federal lands on the Big Sur coast and at Pinnacles National Monument in San Benito County as protected wilderness. The designation would ban logging, mining and road-building on the areas forever.

The bill, which cleared the House last week, now heads to the desk of President Bush. If Bush signs it, as expected, it would mark the largest establishment of new wilderness areas in California since President Clinton signed the Desert Protection Act in 1994, an act that designated 7.5 million acres in the Death Valley, Mojave and Joshua Tree areas as wilderness.

`Special places' ``I'm very excited,'' said Rep. Sam Farr, D-Salinas, who wrote the bill. ``California has so many God-given special places. It is our duty as trustees of the moment to preserve them forever.'' All the lands affected already are owned by the federal government.

The Big Sur Wilderness and Conservation Act adds 37,110 acres to the Ventana Wilderness and 17,055 acres to the Silver Peak Wilderness in Los Padres National Forest on the Big Sur coast. The act also adds 2,715 acres of wilderness to the north edge of Pinnacles National Monument. Combined, the new wilderness would make up an area twice the size of San Francisco that would enjoy the toughest environmental protections possible under federal law.

The bill was passed by a Republican-controlled House of Representatives that has shown little appetite for establishing new wilderness areas.

But Farr and environmental groups who supported the measure noted that it had no organized opposition because nearly all logging and mining has ended in Big Sur over the past few decades, and the bill doesn't seek to remove a handful of ranchers who rent federal lands in the newly protected areas.

No opposition ``These are areas that have a large constituency for protection,'' said Keith Hammond, a spokesman for the California Wilderness Coalition in Davis. ``They are popular areas. They were not controversial. There was no Republican opposition.''

Once a piece of national forest or other federal land becomes wilderness, camping, hiking, hunting and horseback-riding are still allowed, but all logging, mining, oil drilling, road building and motorized vehicles are banned. Even bicycles are prohibited.

None of the California areas faced immediate development pressures, but environmentalists said they were trying to plan for the future.

``I'm ecstatic. We have been working on this for four or five years,'' said Tom Hopkins, a spokesman for the Ventana Wilderness Alliance, an environmental group.

``We don't know what the future holds,'' he added. ``But with the increasing pressure from California's rapidly growing population, we feel the highest and best use of these areas is long-term, permanent protection for watershed values, wildlife, solitude and recreation.''

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