Keep the Wild Lands Wild

Re “Recasting Wilderness as Open for Business,” Oct. 25: Finally -- but better late than never -- The Times has realized that the precarious position of America’s wilderness is in the hands of a government that cares more about short-term energy than a long-term legacy to future generations of Americans.

Please keep delivering information to the millions of Americans who are not aware of this irreversible destruction.

Ann Videriksen

Los Angeles

*

Writer Henry Weinstein does an excellent job of piecing together a complex story.

Over the last four years, the Bush administration has orchestrated a full reversal of America’s great tradition of protecting its wild and special places.

This has been accomplished through backroom negotiations, “friendly” court settlements, “instruction memoranda” and other subtle tactics that may fall below the radar of daily news, but which together add up to a wholesale attack on our protections for wild lands in the United States.

The disastrous effects of these “no more wilderness” policies are not limited to Utah.

The Bureau of Land Management is currently writing land-use plans that will determine the fate of such national treasures as Colorado’s Roan Plateau, a renowned place for backcountry recreation, hunting and fishing; New Mexico’s Otero Mesa, a spectacular grasslands area that is home to the state’s healthiest population of pronghorn antelope; Wyoming’s Red Desert and other areas throughout the Rocky Mountain West.

These are wild, awe-inspiring places that fit most Americans’ definition of “America the beautiful,” but thanks to this administration, they are up for grabs to the oil and gas industry.

If that’s not extreme, then I don’t know what is.

David Alberswerth

Director of BLM Program

The Wilderness Society

Washington, D.C.

*

It is really hard to believe that President Bush, who tells us that he gets personal direction from God about how to handle things, got the message that desecrating the environment for the benefit of big corporations is really what God wants us to do with his gift of our planet.

Sen. John Kerry had the right idea when he quoted Lincoln about wanting to “be on God’s side.”

Joel Goodman

Santa Ana

*

Your front page photo of an oil drilling rig adjacent to the splendid red rock country in Utah is a horror.

Having recently visited Arches National Park and the area near Wild Horse Mesa, I thought surely these breathtaking natural gems would be unmolested, left for future generations to enjoy.

What is planned by profit-hungry energy companies, in collaboration with our government, is no less than a rape of these extraordinary places.

Californians of every political persuasion would not allow oil development along our scenic coasts. Shouldn’t our beautiful national forests and parklands and our unique wilderness areas be equally preserved?

Something is terribly wrong.

Edith Bockian

Fullerton

*

The Bush administration’s trashing of the environment and its systematic reduction of our wilderness areas fits perfectly with its dogmatic desire to rescind most forms of progress made in America in the last 50 years.

What should make this sickening bout of plundering and substitution of stewardship with corporate glad-handing so alarming to us all is the following: While the effect of many fiscal and social policies are (thankfully) reversible, the decimation of natural wonders such as a plant, a species, a river or open space cannot be undone.

Is this the type of legacy that we would want our generation to be remembered for?

Chris Bellamy

Los Angeles