In the late 1970s and early 1980s, I was a young, hard-driving member of the Montana Wilderness Association Council, and I contributed as much money as I could to the organization. Now, after watching MWA abandon its efforts to permanently protect our last roadless lands as Wilderness, I no longer support the organization.
With the MWA leading the way, the 70s and 80s were the glory years of Montana’s Wilderness preservation movement. In 1977, with the leadership of late-Sen. Lee Metcalf, we passed the Montana Wilderness Study Act. Three major Wilderness bills soon followed: the Absaroka-Beartooth Wilderness Act (1978), the Rattlesnake Wilderness and Recreation Act (1980), and the Lee Metcalf Wilderness Act (1983). In 1988, Congress passed a bi-partisan bill creating 1.4 million acres of Wilderness in Montana, but President Ronald Reagan pocket-vetoed the bill.
Hence began the Wilderness drought. No real Wilderness bill has been introduced into Congress for 36 years and counting. Instead, we have seen at least five major collaborative proposals that basically divide up the last of wild Montana, some for Wilderness, but much Wilderness-quality lands compromised for other land uses…