CounterPunch Exclusives

CounterPunch Exclusives

Greater Yellowstone Coalition Sells Out Wilderness in Greater Yellowstone

Grizzly Bear. The Buffalohorn and Porcupine drainages contain some of the best grizzly habitat outside of Yellowstone NP. Photo by George Wuerthner.

The Greater Yellowstone Coalition (GYC) has a new TV ad advocating support for the Greater Yellowstone Conservation and Recreation Act. The Act would designate wilderness for a portion of the Gallatin Range, south of Bozeman. Still, it would significantly REDUCE the potential wilderness protection for the Gallatin Range and almost assuredly increase recreational use of these mountains.

The Gallatin Range is a spectacular glaciated mountain range that runs south from Bozeman to Yellowstone National Park. These mountains are the last major unprotected landscape in the northern Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem. A minimum of 250,000 acres of the Gallatin Range, as advocated by the Gallatin Yellowstone Wilderness Alliance, should be designated wilderness under the 1964 Wilderness Act.

Big Creek headwaters at Windy Pass Gallatin Range, Gallatin NF, Montana. Photo by George Wuerthner.

GYC is among the members of the Gallatin Forest Partnership, which includes mountain bikers, ORV users, hunt and fishing organizations, the Blackfeet Tribe, and the big three conservation groups in the Bozeman area: GYC, The Wilderness Society, and Montana Wildlands (formerly Montana Wilderness Association), among other organizations.

The ad features a series of recreational users, including a speeding mountain biker, a fly fisherman, a couple on horses, and a runner. The ad says the GFP legislation will protect access to the range.

Given that the legislation names recreation as one of its key features, it’s not surprising that GYC says nothing in the ad about preserving non-human values such as wildlife habitat, biodiversity, carbon storage, or wildlands. It’s all about human recreational use.

The Greater Yellowstone Conservation and Recreation Act would continue motorized use of critical wildlife habitat. Seen here is the Buffalohorn Drainage, one of the most important wildlife use areas in the entire range. Photo by George Wuerthner.

Though GYC’s name mentions the ecosystem, this ad........

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