Bid to designate 50k acres in UP as wilderness highlights tension over public lands – MLive.com

ONTONAGON COUNTY, MI The Ehlco forest area features 16,000 acres of gently sloping land covered by hardwood and conifer trees, which is bisected by the Big Iron River and inhabited by deer, black bears and wolves.

To the west, 25,000 acres in the Trap Hills features a boreal and northern hardwood forest with cedar swamps, rugged slopes and sheer cliffs that boast visibility up to 40 miles.

Both areas are among four big chunks of federal land in Michigans Upper Peninsula that preservation advocates want to see designated as wilderness, a level of national protection afforded to the wildest of lands which forever prohibits logging, mining and other resources extraction and restricts almost all vehicle access.

The Keep the UP Wild coalition wants the proposed designation for about 50,000 acres in the Ottawa National Forest. The effort launched last summer but has yet to be formally taken up by Congress, which gets to decide which lands become wilderness a place the Wilderness Act of 1964 defines as where the earth and its community of life are untrammeled by man, where man himself is a visitor who does not remain.

The effort has significant support from environment, conservation and climate groups, Democrats and eco-friendly businesses. However, it began drawing fire this summer from the timber industry and Republican lawmakers in Lansing, who see the proposed change as not just unnecessary but potentially detrimental to local economies tied to logging and other forms of outdoor recreation that would be prohibited under a wilderness designation.

On June 30, the Republican-led Michigan Senate approved a resolution to oppose the wilderness designation that was authored by Sen. Ed McBroom, R-Vulcan.

When I met with these groups to discuss this issue, they made it very clear that the only significant difference that would happen in their minds in this designation is going from hardly ever cutting trees to never cutting trees, McBroom said in Senate floor remarks. Thats just not acceptable for the people of the Upper Peninsula, who continue to need resource-based economics in order to let our communities survive.

The wilderness proposal represents a new wrinkle in the debate over public land in Michigan the sizable acreage of which has long been a sore point for those who say local tax revenues and economic development potential suffer when land is owned by the state and federal governments.

In this case, the land is already federally owned and advocates argue that a wilderness designation would benefit local areas by drawing visitors who want to hike in remote, scenic settings. Further, it would enshrine protections in perpetuity.

The biggest benefit to doing something like this is providing permanent protection to these areas, said Tyler Barron, a policy advocate for Keep the UP Wild with the Chicago-based Environmental Law and Policy Center. If these areas are kept as just simply U.S. Forest Service lands, they are kind of under a permanent risk of things like logging that should not ever be allowed in these areas.

In addition to the Ehlco and Trap Hills areas, the coalition wants to designate 8,000 acres near Berglund called the Norwich Plains and add 2,000 acres of wilderness to the existing Sturgeon River Gorge Wilderness, which is one of 16 existing federal wilderness areas in Michigan that, together, encompass 294,000 acres in both the Upper and Lower Peninsulas.

Although the exact boundaries and acreage of each area has not been finalized, the goal is to create a 40,000 contiguous wilderness between the Trap Hills, Ehlco and Norwich areas, which would be adjacent to and immediately south of Porcupine Mountains Wilderness State Park.

The effort began after 2019 legislation named for late Congressman John Dingell designated more than 1.3 million new wilderness acres nationwide, expanded the National Parks system and protected land near Yellowstone from mining. Advocates for wilderness in the UP saw the bipartisan support the bill received in Congress and began a new push.

Unfortunately, tragedy befell the effort last year, when longtime advocate and former forest ranger Douglas Welker fell and died during a filming session at the Sturgeon River Gorge.

Welker was instrumental in helping select areas for a potential designation. The properties were specifically chosen for wilderness characteristics and a lack of major ATV or snowmobile trail networks.

Under a wilderness designation, certain activities beyond timber harvesting or mineral extraction are restricted. Only foot travel is allowed. Mountain biking is prohibited, as are any motorized vehicles such as ATVs and snowmobiles. Camping, hiking, backpacking, hunting, fishing, climbing, canoeing, rafting and kayaking are generally OK.

Motorized wheelchairs are granted special access under the Americans with Disabilities Act.

Access prohibitions are a sticking point for some, who question whether the economic benefits of wilderness-based tourism outweigh the dollars that could be brought in by other outdoor recreation uses. Mountain biking is a growing slice of the outdoor economy in the UP particularly on the Keweenaw Peninsula, where a different coalition is attempting to preserve 32,000 acres near Copper Harbor, which has become a popular mountain biking destination.

The Ehlco area includes an existing 20-mile mountain bike trail that, presumably, could no longer be used under a wilderness designation, although Barron said it could be excluded from the wilderness depending on how the final boundaries are drawn.

Because the property is already federal, a wilderness designation would not change U.S. Forest Service operating costs or what local governments receive in payments in lieu of taxes, Barron said.

The Upper Peninsula Environmental Coalition, Michigan Environmental Council, Michigan Nature Association, Michigan Audubon and the Upper Peninsula Travel & Recreation Association are among the Keep the UP Wilds 350 listed supporters.

From a tourism standpoint, its the openness of our land thats our number one seller, said Tom Nemacheck, UP travel association director Look at Isle Royale. Its a wilderness park and it attracts people for that reason. It draws a different type of consumer.

Mountain bikers already have lots of very high-quality designated trails that are being maintained, Nemacheck said. At this point, there are no conflicts we see where theres not enough for everybody to do what they want.

Absent from the coalition is the Upper Peninsula Land Conservancy, which is neutral on the proposal, as is the Michigan Townships Association (MTA). The MTA has accessibility and public safety concerns, spokeswoman Jenn Fiedler said.

Andrea Denham, director of the land conservancy, said the organization is still weighing the proposal and wants to see where local governments and Indigenous tribes fall.

A lot of our economy depends on having a healthy ecosystem and people using it, but its also based on need for jobs and safety and hospitals and places to live and that takes a balance of development and protection, Denham said.

Its always a tension.

The Michigan Association of Counties opposes the designation due to traditional economic concerns but also because of the use restrictions, said Deena Bosworth, director of governmental affairs.

If youre going to take more sections of land and restrict those activities, that restricts more of the outdoor tourism activity, Bosworth said. These smaller areas are really dependent on a lot of that tourism for economic stability up there.

Bosworth was among those who submitted testimony during the Senate Natural Resources Committee hearing June 15, where McBroom laid out his argument and took comments from representatives of the logging industry.

Henry Schienebeck of the Great Lakes Timber Professionals Association argued for status quo management of the land, saying it was formerly logged decades ago and it lacks wilderness characteristics. Schienebeck echoed McBrooms resolution, which cites a 2006 evaluation by Randy Moore, now chief of the Forest Service, who determined that the lands potential as wilderness was marginal.

I carefully examined lands throughout the Ottawa for their potential as wilderness and have determined that a single roadless area on the Ottawa meets the criteria for inclusion in the national roadless areas inventory (the Ehlco area), Moore wrote.

While the Ehlco area has been added to the roadless areas inventory, I found that the area had no features or conditions that warrant a recommendation for wilderness study. The Ehlco area has a low to moderate wilderness potential. Although the area is relatively remote, few people are attracted to the area and there are few recreation qualities. Logged over the past 40-70 years when under private ownership, the area is not particularly scenic due to the young dense forest growing on relatively flat terrain. There are opportunities for solitude, but it is affected by the noise and operation of the nearby White Pine industrial complex.

The Trap Hills did warrant a special interest designation due to unique geologic, scenic, recreational, and botanic features of the area, Moore wrote.

Keep the UP Wild needs a Congressional champion to advance the wilderness designation. The hope is that U.S. Sen. Debbie Stabenow, D-Mich., would introduce it in the Senate Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition and Forestry.

Stabenows office told MLive only she has not made any commitments on this issue.

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Bid to designate 50k acres in UP as wilderness highlights tension over public lands - MLive.com