Published in the Casper Star Tribune on 11/19/03

This week, the public has been treated to the sorry spectacle of right-wing Congressmen snickering with glee at the efforts of conservation groups to defend multiple-use principles. Quipped one of these luminaries, "Are the environmentalists for multiple use now?" These are the same politicians who are bent on dismantling the multiple-use legacy for our public lands through the Energy Bill. It is clear from the snide tenor of the comments coming from Capitol Hill that politicians in the misnamed "Wise Use" movement believe that their actions stand for multiple use, and that multiple use means opening all of our public lands to drilling in an effort to pump out big profits for the oil industry. Nothing could be more unwise, or run more counter to the tenets of multiple use.

Of course, the Multiple Use - Sustained Yield Act of 1960 was originally an environmental protection law, designed to rein in a timber industry that had turned our national forests into a single-use clearcut zone, without regard to the consequences to fish, wildlife, watersheds, and recreation, or even the ability of the forests to keep producing lumber over the long run. The situation had gotten so bad the Congress had to step in, and redirect the Forest Service to put more emphasis on public uses and values, and temper its obsession with industrial use.

The marching orders were simple: "harmonious and coordinated management of the various resources, each with the other, with consideration given to the relative values of the various resources, and not necessarily the combination of uses that will give the greatest dollar return or the greatest unit output." In addition, "some of the land will be used for less than all of the resources." These were good ideas in 1960, and are good ideas today that only lack for implementation.

Then along came the Bureau of Land Management in 1967, and in its early years the agency was so far from the multiple-use concept that it was jokingly referred to as the "Bureau of Livestock and Mining." So in 1976, when Congress gave the BLM its mission, multiple use was again defined: "a combination of balanced and diverse resource uses that takes intro account the long-term needs of future generations for renewable and nonrenewable resources, including, but not limited to, recreation, range, timber, minerals, watershed, wildlife and fish, and natural scenic, scientific, and historical values…." And the Congress was serious about reforming the BLM policies of the time, directing the Secretary of Interior to "minimize adverse impacts on the natural, environmental, scientific, cultural, and other resources and values (including fish and wildlife habitat)," and to "take any action necessary to prevent unnecessary or undue degradation of the lands." If these directives were followed today, we wouldn't have our current problem of oil and gas drilling crowding out the scenic, recreational, and wildlife habitat uses of Wyoming's public lands.

So it should be no surprise that conservation groups are out there advocating for multiple use, as it dovetails nicely with the concepts of maintaining viable populations of native wildlife and protecting special landscapes for the use and benefit of the public, concepts which drive the missions of those who work tirelessly for the most special interest of all: the public interest. And instead of arguing that the logging, mining, and oil industries should be banned from public lands, Wyoming's conservation groups have been advocating that industrial uses need not be mutually exclusive with conservation, if only industrial use went forward in a responsible way. We have the technology to get the job done right, without destroying our legacy of wildlife and open spaces on public land. The Energy Bill should have focused on using these technologies to pursue badly needed reforms. Instead, it sweeps aside the few and paltry conservation measures that stand between the oil industry and complete domination of our public lands.

This nation's energy policy should instill the patience to plan oil and gas developments intelligently and the wisdom to protect the lands where other uses are more important than drilling. Reforming the way that oil and gas drilling proceeds on public land would not be a radical departure from the concept of multiple use; indeed, it would reinforce it. But true multiple use would mean a radical change in the way that industry does business on public lands in Wyoming, and a change for the better.

Erik Molvar is a wildlife biologist for Biodiversity Conservation Alliance, a nonprofit conservation group based in Laramie, Wyoming.