Tell the Forest Service not to turn the Mission Mountains Wilderness into a “manscape”

The Forest Service (FS) is accepting comments on an ill-conceived proposal to burn 13,500 acres and plant white bark pine on 2,000 acres in the Mission Mountains Wilderness in northwest Montana. The Wilderness Act prohibits manipulating Wilderness—like what the FS proposes in this massive "MANscaping" project—for good reason. Wilderness is meant to be shaped by natural processes, not gardened into what land managers want. Wilderness Act author Howard Zahniser put it best when he implored us to be “guardians not gardeners.”

Please speak up today for the Mission Mountains Wilderness! Comments are due October 13.

The project is part of a larger 15-year proposal to log up to 40,000 acres on the Flathead National Forest between the Swan Mountains Crest and the northern portion of the Mission Mountains Wilderness.

The Forest Service claims burning and logging is needed to reduce wildfire risk to homes, but fails to address climate change as the underlying cause of hotter fires, or protect property or lives—scientific studies show home ignition is determined by conditions in the home’s immediate area rather than in forests far from communities.

The proposal violates the fundamental values of Wilderness.

Prescribed fire would interfere with natural processes in the Mission Mountains Wilderness, yet the Forest Service plans to ignite an undetermined number of fires via helicopter over a number of years. The Forest Service should instead allow natural fires to burn in the Wilderness. 

The Forest Service also wants to plant blister rust-resistant white bark pines in the Mission Mountains Wilderness. But, planting in Wilderness, regardless of how well intended, violates a fundamental tenet of Wilderness—that it remains “untrammeled by man,” or unmanipulated.

Not only will planting super trees manipulate the Wilderness, but it likely won’t work. Fungi like rust are highly adaptive and planting trees resistant (versus immune) to blister rust will likely select for rust that can overcome trees that were thought to be previously rust resistant. Trying to short-circuit an evolutionary process of adaption won’t likely work and may actually further endanger white bark pine across the landscape.

Helicopters are antithetical to Wilderness and prohibited by the Wilderness Act except in rare cases where such use is essential to wilderness protection or search and rescue operations. Helicopters harass wildlife and destroy the experience for wilderness visitors.

Please urge the Forest Service to drop its proposal and let the Wilderness be wild, as the Wilderness Act requires.