Greenwire
Published October 11, 2006

PUBLIC LANDS: Calif. enviros back bill to designate 125,000 acres as wilderness

By Dan Berman, Greenwire senior reporter

The California conservation community is rallying behind an effort by a Republican congresswoman to designate about 125,000 acres of Riverside County as wilderness in an effort to limit future development in the fast-growing area east of Los Angeles.

The new bill from Rep. Mary Bono (R-Calif.) would potentially set aside 78,000 acres in the Joshua Tree National Park as wilderness, as well as additional lands in the Cleveland and San Bernardino national forests and various Bureau of Land Management-controlled parcels in Riverside County.

H.R. 6270 <http://www.eenews.net/features/bills/109/House/101006091027.pdf> is driven by the pressure on open space in Riverside County, said Jon Owen of the Campaign for America's Wilderness. "You see a tremendous amount of growth, population increase and ever-expanding sprawl," Owen said. "What history bears out is threat without permanent protection ... there are always plans for development and these places will always be at risk."

Lands included in the bill provide critical habitat to endangered species such as the bighorn sheep and desert tortoise, and rivers proposed for protection are important water sources and home to at-risk species such as the mountain yellow-legged frog.

Wilderness designations generally prohibit any motorized activity, timber harvest or natural resource development. About 106.6 million acres of federal land are protected by wilderness in 680 units managed by the Interior Department and Forest Service.

Introduced as Congress left town last month, Bono's bill is intended as a starting point for discussions in the 110th Congress. "It's a big public invitation for everybody to come to the table and introduce a bill that would be shaped next year," Owen said.

In the Joshua Tree National Park, the bill would immediately designate 37,000 acres as wilderness, adding to existing wilderness areas in the park created in the mid-1970s. For the remaining 41,000 acres, the Park Service would manage the land as wilderness, but it would not be a part of the national wilderness system until the agency acquires enough land within the boundary from willing sellers to create a manageable wilderness unit.

In addition, the bill would:

• Add about 1,950 acres to the Agua Tibia Wilderness on the Cleveland National Forest and BLM lands.
• Designate 7,131 acres on Cahuilla Mountain as wilderness in the San Bernardino National Forest.
• Designate 21,760 acres of the San Bernardino National Forest as the South Fork San Jacinto wilderness.
• Designate 16,700 acres on Beauty Mountain on BLM lands as wilderness.
• Designate 31 miles of the North Fork San Jacinto River, Bautista Creek and Palm Canyon as wild and scenic

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