Short Takes : Oates Changes Gears on Forests
John Oates of Hall and Oates and Bob Weir of the Grateful Dead took a 200-mile trip in August, riding mountain bicycles through national forests in Montana. Oates says it changed his ideas about national forests.
“I thought you set up a camp, and Smokey the Bear keeps you from setting forest fires,” he said. “Through a friend in Montana I heard about massive clear cutting going on in national forests.
“What we found was depressing and enlightening. A lot of forest is being cut at a rate that cannot sustain continued growth. A lot is exported to foreign countries. We went through a borderline area, not devastated completely. It borders a wilderness area. The delicate balance of the wildlife habitat is completely altered.”
Oates said he planned to take his information to Washington and seek a “citizens’ bill” to protect national forests.
Oates and Weir were accompanied on their bike trip by friends and some members of the Alliance for the Wild Rockies who want to designate part of the Rocky Mountain chain as a wilderness area.
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