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Last November 19, Sierra Club
President Chuck McGrady flew to Missoula to help the
Montana Chapter and the northwest region kick off our
Lewis and Clark campaign.
Besides meeting with the news media, and holding
some smaller sessions, he was our keynoter at a
well-attended gathering for conservationists and at a
later meeting for the general public.
The latter two were held at the Boone and
Crockett Club on the bank of the Clark Fork River, most
appropriate.
Our appreciation goes to Chuck for
highlighting our new campaign, and to the many
Missoula-area folks who worked hard to co-ordinate a
successful event.
In the works since at least, last
summer, the multi state campaign, to be staged over
several years to coincide with the bicentennial
observance of the landmark expedition, has several
objectives:
- To
highlight the differences between what the explorers
found and what we see today in the same places, in
other words what we have lost.
- To
raise public awareness of, and enlarge the
constituency for, the maintenance of still-wild
places along their route.
- To
determine what places can be brought back to
something like their “as discovered” conditions,
under the umbrella of a “Corps of Recovery”
- To
secure designation of additional wilderness areas
within the now-states traversed by the
L&C expedition.
For starters, each of those states'
Chapters decided on several sites within their areas
which deserve extra protection; these were highlighted
in material made available to the media to coincide with
our kick-off announcement.
For Montana, those areas are the Pryor Mountains,
the Cabinet-Yaak area, the Selway-Bitterroots
(shared with Idaho), the Gallatin, and the Rocky
Mountain Front/Badger-Two Medicine. These initial
selections do not preclude others being added; the
Missouri River Breaks, for example, might become
another.
A Lewis and Clark Task Force has
been in place since last summer, with representatives
from the Dakotas, Idaho, Oregon, Montana, and
Washington; it continues to plan subsequent events and
strategies for achieving the campaign's objectives.
Watch for announcements of such happenings as
outings to the selected areas, media events and
cooperative efforts with other organizations. And: your suggestions for innovative ways in which we can
draw upon the national attention---and the expected huge
visitor influx--are always welcome;
Click here for
contact information.
(Sherm Janke, Bozeman) |
