Fernberg Corridor Project decision shields the Boundary Waters Wilderness from human meddling
By Kevin Proescholdt, Wilderness Watch
Fans of the Boundary Waters and Wilderness in general should celebrate the recent decision by Superior National Forest Supervisor Tom Hall on the Fernberg Corridor Project. His decision allows activities outside the Wilderness to proceed, but wisely excludes the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness (BWCAW) from the project’s earlier proposed activities.
The Fernberg Corridor Project lies east of Ely, Minnesota, along the Fernberg Road out to Lake One. The Project covers about 175,000 acres, including about 84,000 acres within the BWCAW.
The original project proposal called for intentionally burning off these 84,000 acres of the BWCAW, including lands as far as six or seven miles inside the Wilderness, with the assistance of chainsaws, aircraft, mechanical drip torches, and other motorized tools that are prohibited by the 1964 Wilderness Act.
At issue is not just the motorized/mechanized tools and transportation that would be involved with the Forest Service igniting fires in the BWCAW. Manager-ignited fires represent a form of manipulation of the Wilderness, imposing human values and preferences on the wilderness landscape rather than allowing Nature to choose. Letting nature call the shots is the fundamental tenet that sets Wilderness apart from other lands. It tests our ability to show humility and restraint. And manager-ignited fire can have very different effects on the Wilderness than lightning-ignited fires, in terms of timing, location, which forest stands burn, severity, and other ecological impacts from the burns. Because of these concerns, Wilderness Watch supporters submitted over 2,000 comments opposing this part of the project, and Wilderness Watch filed a formal Objection to the proposed wilderness burning.
The late Forest Service ecologist, Dr. Miron “Bud” Heinselman, who studied the BWCAW’s forests and reconstructed its fire history back to the year 1595, showed that the forests of the BWCAW are a fire-dependent ecosystem, and that fire has helped shape the BWCAW’s forests for millennia. Fire needs to continue to play its natural ecological and evolutionary role in the BWCAW. So why did we object to the proposed burning in the BWCAW?
The Wilderness Act and the 1978 BWCAW Act provide statutory protections for shielding designated Wildernesses from human meddling. These statutes trump even seemingly important ecological purposes like manager-ignited “prescribed” fire in the BWCAW. The Wilderness Act defines Wilderness in part as “untrammeled” or unmanipulated. It preserves the opportunity to witness, experience, and study ecosystems where Nature reigns, and where we humans don’t impose our preferences and desires on the place. The Wilderness Act further states in section 4(b) that the one central purpose of the law is to preserve wilderness character, in other words, an area’s wildness.
The federal courts have upheld this “untrammeled” mandate of the Wilderness Act. Last fall, for example, Federal Judge Donald Molloy of Montana ruled against a stream poisoning project in the Absaroka-Beartooth Wilderness immediately north of Yellowstone National Park. Though this project was also intended to provide an ecological benefit for Yellowstone Cutthroat Trout, it nonetheless contravened the untrammeled mandate of the Wilderness Act.
If human-ignited fire runs counter to the intent of the Wilderness Act, then, how can fire be allowed to play its natural ecological role in the BWCAW? The best wilderness option would allow natural lightning-caused fire to resume its role in the Wilderness, rather than suppressing nearly all those blazes. And Supervisor Hall recognized this path forward in his recent decision on the Fernberg Corridor Project. “This decision increases the opportunity for lightning caused fires to play a natural role within the BWCAW by reducing heavy fuel loading in WUI [wildland urban interface] areas outside the wilderness boundary.”
With the decision to forego the planned burning activities within the BWCAW, the Forest Service decision noted, “Wilderness character would be preserved. The decision complies with Section 4b of the Wilderness Act.”
So the Forest Service made the proper decision to exclude the Boundary Waters Wilderness from the Fernberg Corridor Project. This decision will indeed help preserve the wildness of the BWCAW, while offering a path forward for allowing lightning-ignited fire to resume its natural role in renewing the forests of the BWCAW.
Kevin Proescholdt is the Conservation Director for Wilderness Watch. He has worked in wilderness policy, legislation, and history for more than a half-century, including working to pass the 1978 Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness Act through Congress and co-authoring the history of that struggle, Troubled Waters: The Fight for the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness.