Wilderness Protection
in the Southern Rockies

Western Colorado is rich with rivers, redrock canyons and pinyon-juniper covered mesas - areas that many Coloradans enjoy for rafting, fishing, hunting, camping and a wealth of other recreational activities. Yet only a fraction of these lower-elevation wildlands - Colorado's Canyon Country - have been protected in their wild state as wilderness. The Colorado Wilderness Network (CWN), the wilderness protection branch of the Southern Rockies Conservation Alliance, was formed to protect the year-round wildlife habitat and outstanding opportunities for solitude and backcountry recreation that our canyon county has to offer.

Continental Divide from the James Peak Wilderness Area (Laurence Pacheco)

CWN is a coalition of over 360 local governments, businesses, and recreation, faith-based and conservation organizations working to permanently protect the lands described in the Citizens' Wilderness Proposal (CWP) for Colorado's Canyon Country. The CWP includes the wildest 1.6 million acres of redrock river canyons, pinyon and juniper forests and sagebrush parks of public lands on Colorado's Western Slope. Members of CWN work to protect wilderness by connecting citizens to the land through hikes into proposed wilderness areas, fighting short-sighted oil and gas development projects in CWP areas, and seeking support from elected officials for statutory wilderness protections. SRCA and CWN advocate for the safe-guarding of these spectacular wild places in the CWP until they can be permanently protected by Congress.

Colorado River flowing through the Bull Gulch Wilderness Study Area (Brandon Jett)

The efforts of CWN are coordinated by Colorado Environmental Coalition, Colorado Mountain Club, The Sierra Club, Western Colorado Congress, and The Wilderness Society. Also participating are groups as diverse as the Colorado Wildlife Federation, Fugahwe Senior Hikers, and Colorado River Outfitters Association. Supporting businesses include the Gardenswartz Sports hunting and camping store in Durango, and the Holiday Inn in Grand Junction. The Town of Eagle, San Miguel County, Delta County, Mesa County, Teller County and Gunnison County are among the local government supporters who back all or part of the CWP.

Current Issues

Protection for Rocky Mountain National Park – Act Now!
Rocky Mountain National Park is home to some of Colorado’s most spectacular peaks and miles of gorgeous backcountry terrain, making it a popular destination for visitors from around the world. Many come to experience the awe-inspiring views from the top of Trail Ridge Road or to hear the elk bugle in the fall, while others seek solitude in the thick pine forests. Supporting a healthy tourism economy, the Park’s wild lands are as invaluable to the gateway towns of Estes Park and Grand Lake as they are to future generations of park visitors.

A bill currently pending in Congress could designate the vast backcountry of Rocky Mountain National Park -- 249,339 acres -- as wilderness, as well as provide for the addition of 1,000 acres to the Indian Peaks Wilderness. The time has come to protect the park!

Click here to learn more.

The Citizens' Wilderness Proposal
The 1.6 million-acre Citizens' Wilderness Proposal (CWP) would permanently protect 1.3 million acres of Colorado wildlands managed by the Bureau of Land Management (BLM), as well as roughly 300,000 acres of adjacent Forest Service lands. The CWP would protect as wilderness 60 special places across Colorado, primarily on the West Slope, including many low- to mid-elevation lands that provide essential wildlife habitat and outstanding backcountry recreation opportunities. This comprehensive proposal is embodied in legislation sponsored by Representative Diana DeGette (H.R. 2305). Wilderness designation is the best way to protect Colorado's wildlands while allowing other multiple uses such as hiking, skiing, livestock grazing, hunting, and fishing. Currently, over 85 percent of the BLM lands in Colorado are open to oil and gas development, while only 1.7 percent is protected as wilderness. The CWP would increase the amount of protected BLM lands to 17 percent, still leaving the vast majority of BLM land open to extractive uses. Over 360 local governments, businesses, and recreation, faith-based and conservation organizations have endorsed the protection of lands in the CWP. Specific legislative initiatives are also being crafted for several individual areas within the CWP, including Deep Creek, Browns Canyon, and Dominguez Canyon.

Interim Protection
Under the Bush Administration, oil and gas development of our public lands has been made the priority use over all other public values, including wilderness protection. New drilling proposals have already surfaced in places like the Canyons of the Ancients National Monument, and the proposed Big Ridge and Hunter Canyon Wilderness Areas. Challenging these enhanced threats to wildlife habitat and wildlands, in addition to increasing degradation from encroaching off-road vehicle use, continues to demand the full-time attention of CWN members.

Roan Plateau
The Roan Plateau, which rises above Rifle, Colorado, is the focus of a controversial expedited BLM management planning process that will decide the fate of this unique wildland. This magnificent area of stunning cliffs, deep canyons, quiet trout streams, and expansive meadows has been identified as one of the most biologically diverse areas in Colorado by the Colorado Natural Heritage Program. In addition, citizen groups have identified 38,000 acres on the top and cliffs of the Plateau as qualifying for wilderness protection. The Roan Plateau is also part of an extensive natural gas basin in northwest Colorado and northeastern Utah, and the base of the plateau along Interstate 70 is already being heavily drilled and developed. Over 12,000 citizens, every municipal government in Garfield County (where the Plateau is located), and newspapers across the state have written in support of protecting the top and cliffs of the Plateau from energy development, while allowing gas development to continue at the Plateau's base. BLM recently announced, however, that this popular management option would not be considered in its planning process, leading many citizens and local governments to cry foul. The BLM's draft plan is due out in Spring 2003. Come help us save this spectacular place. See SaveRoanPlateau.org

The Bush Administration's "No More Wilderness" Policy
In April 2003, Secretary of the Interior Gale Norton entered into a settlement agreement with the State of Utah in which she committed to never allow the BLM to ever again consider wilderness values or protecting those values in its planning and management processes. Secretary Norton also retroactively declared that all wilderness reviews conducted by the BLM since 1991 are illegal and void. This settlement runs contrary to existing environmental law as well as the wilderness policies of all preceding administrations since President Ronald Reagan, and is being challenged by conservationists in court.

Meanwhile, however, this "No More Wilderness" policy could have huge implications for Colorado's wildlands. For the past seven years, the BLM in Colorado was guided by its "Colorado Wilderness Review Policy" which required the agency to review citizen-proposed wilderness areas on BLM lands before proceeding with any proposals - such as oil and gas drilling - that would degrade an area's wildness. The Bush Administration's new policy, however, revokes this common-sense Colorado guidance, placing over 600,000 acres of citizen-proposed wilderness areas in Colorado at immediate risk of being developed for oil and gas development, logging, or new off-road vehicle routes -- before Congress has a chance to decide whether to designate them as wilderness (only BLM Wilderness Study Areas designated before 1991 will be safe). This means that not only will special places like Roan Plateau and Vermillion Basin not be considered for wilderness protection by the BLM, they could be drilled and roaded in the very near future! To learn more about this ill-founded policy, see Department of Interior Launches Devastating Late-Night Wilderness Assault.

RS2477: A Tool To Block Wilderness
Our most treasured national parks and public lands are in the cross hairs of a plan to allow counties and states to bulldoze and pave thousands of miles of new roads, and to open these lands to development and off-road vehicle interests. The tool of choice to damage and degrade our national treasures is a loophole in an obscure, repealed, Civil War-era law (Revised Statute 2477) originally intended to facilitate settlement of the West by granting rights-of-ways across public lands. Although R.S. 2477 was repealed in 1976, existing road claims were grandfathered, and now anti-wilderness forces are arguing that long-forgotten or little-used foot and animal tracks, or illegal off-road vehicle ruts, are "constructed highways" that should be under the control of state and local governments. Unfortunately, the Bush Administration just issued a new directive that would facilitate those illegitimate claims -- and the destruction of our nation's greatest landscapes.

Now, several states are claiming thousands of routes across every type of public land units, including National Parks and existing and proposed wilderness areas. Here in Colorado in January 2003, Moffat County claimed a spaghetti-network of over 2,00 miles of R.S. 2477 right-of-way claims -- including pedestrian trails, cow paths, dirtbike routes, and even non-existent routes -- across the county, including through Dinosaur National Monument, Browns Park National Wildlife Refuge and numerous proposed wilderness areas. If these "phantom roads" were bulldozed by the county, they would carve up some of the wildest and most precious lands in the northwest corner of our state. To see a map and photos of Moffat County's outrageous proposal, go to http://www.highway-robbery.com/lands/colorado.htm.