Dear City Club Members and Friends:

November's City Club forum celebrated the 50th anniversary of the Wilderness Act. Our speakers, Brent Fenty (Executive Director, ONDA) and Dana Whitelaw (Executive Director, High Desert Museum), both underscored the negotiated nature of Wilderness designations, which allows flexibility to customize the conditions that apply to each area on a case by case basis. Continued cattle grazing in the Steens, for example, remains part of the management plan for that wilderness. Also notable, Oregon lags behind many of its neighbors in terms of acres designated as Wilderness. High desert areas throughout the eastern part of the state represent the next 50 years of Wilderness opportunities.

In many parts of the United States, Wilderness designation is viewed as being adverse to economic interests. Based on the comments and questions during our forum, however, Central Oregon seems to have embraced environmental stewardship as a key component of our economy. Proximity to wild areas attracts not only tourists, but intellectual and economic capital as well. As John Muir observed more than a century ago, "Thousands of tired, nerve-shaken, over-civilized people are beginning to find out that going to the mountains is going home; that wilderness is a necessity."

To learn more about the Wilderness Act and how it might it might be implemented over the next 50 years, check out these links:

• Wilderness Institute's 50th Anniversary
• Oregon Wild
• "How the Wilderness Act Changed Oregon (and America)" (Statesman Journal)
• Breathtaking photos of the Owyhee Canyonlands

City Club wishes to thank our program team of Anne Aurand and Kathy Oxborrow; our speakers Brent Fenty and Dana Whitelaw; our moderator Mike Riley (Executive Director, the Environmental Center); and our forum supporting sponsor The Oxford hotel and 10 Below

Engage!

Bill Buchanan

City Club Board Member and Past President

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