As part of developing its backcountry access plan, Big Cypress National Preserve in Florida will also conduct a wilderness eligibility assessment for lands within the original boundaries of the preserve.
The Preserve first initiated public scoping for the backcountry access plan in the fall of 2013.
“Public comments received during the scoping period recognized a need for the Preserve to identify areas eligible for Wilderness designation as a part of this planning effort to identify off-road vehicle (ORV) secondary trails, non-motorized trails, and a camping management approach within the Preserve. This step is consistent with National Park Service policy and is necessary to ensure a thorough and defensible planning process,” Superintendent Pedro Ramos said last week in announcing the assessment.
National Park Service lands are considered eligible for wilderness if they are at least 5,000 acres or of sufficient size to make practicable their preservation and use in an unimpaired condition, and if they possess wilderness characteristics (as identified in the Wilderness Act of 1964). The wilderness eligibility assessment process is anticipated to take 4 to 6 months and the final eligibility determination will be announced through an additional press release and by publication in the Federal Register.
Big Cypress officials, including Superintendent Ramos, have been criticized over their handling of past wilderness assessments associated with the Additional Lands. The Addition Lands had been closed to both ORV use and ORV-assisted hunting ever since they came to the preserve in 1996 while officials worked on developing a management plan for the area. After announcing in their 2009 Draft General Management Plan for the Addition that approximately 109,000 acres were “wilderness eligible,” the NPS subsequently conducted a “re-assessment” completely outside of public view and which concluded that only 71,000 acres were eligible and recommended just 47,000 acres be proposed to Congress as future wilderness, according to opponents.
“This suit is necessary because the Park Service improperly rewrote wilderness mapping to produce a result which had been decided behind closed doors,”Jeff Ruch, executive director of Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility, said at the time. “We expected better of the Park Service under this administration and, thus far, we have been sorely disappointed.”
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There we go. More useless wilderness to appease the PEER fanatics.
Good, hopefully the 109,000 that was suggested is actually considered, and during the 2016 cenennial that everyone says must show a clear and concise vision, they can say "Now that most of this is wilderness, we hope in the next 100 years, after this land has recovered enough that it will merge with the Everglades creating the largest protected natural wetlands ecosystems on the planet.
Sorry, but calling fans of wilderness 'fanatics' does kinda paint the walls of your own box.
I'm not the one who's trying to close every single square inch of outdoors to the chosen few recreationists.
You can still canoe it, even if it's wilderness.
This debate primarily boils down to how much of the park will be open to ORV use. The park website notes that much of the interior of the park is swamp, and "nearly impossible to reach by foot; " travel options are mainly airboats, swamp buggies, canoes and kayaks.
The park contains about 729,000 acres, so a reasonable question is how much should be open to airboats and swamp buggies, and how much might be protected as wilderness for other values and uses.
Whether you use the initial assessment that 109,000 acres were "wilderness eligible" or the latest recommendation that would list 47,000 acres as potential "future wilderness," the amount of the preserve being discussed for wilderness designation ranges from 15% down to 6%.
" . . . trying to close every single square inch of outdoors to the chosen few recreationists"
So if you read that as written, it means that the outdoors will be closed only to the chosen few but will be wide open to the rest of us. Interesting concept.
If the chosen few are those on ATVs and other potentially destructive mechanical devices when they are unregulated, I hope so.
Thank you, Zeb, for supporting common sense in resource management.
Why is wilderness useless? Solely because you can't drive on it?