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The Wyoming Wilderness Association celebrates our 5th year with an open house on Monday, February 4, 2008. Below, please find a series reported by Sheridan Media reporter Kate Fetterly.
► WYOMING WILDERNESS SERIES PART III - Today, we conclude a three part series which discusses the work of the Wyoming Wilderness Association in it's efforts to bring more declared wilderness areas to Wyomingites. Kate Fetterly, reporter from Sheridan Media - Audio Clip ► WYOMING WILDERNESS SERIES PART II - On Monday, we told you about how the Wyoming Wilderness Association came to be in the late 1970's and took a look at their work through the late 90's and early 2000's. Today, we continue and take a look at what's happened with the organization under its present form. Kate Fetterly, reporter from Sheridan Media - Audio Clip ► WYOMING WILDERNESS SERIES PART I - Wyoming Wilderness Association discusses progress over the past few decades - Although the current organization of Wyoming Wilderness Association has marked their 5 year Anniversary, the work they started began long before 2003. Kate Fetterly, reporter from Sheridan Media reports on the history of the non-profit organization - Audio clip
► WILDERNESS group marks 5th year by Bob Gross Staff reporter - The Sheridan Press - February 5, 2008. The Sheridan-based Wyoming Wilderness Association marked its fifth year Monday with an open house. "We have nearly 500 members now, six and a half staff people and two offices - we have an office in Jackson," said Liz Howell, executive director of the group. "I think what we're doing really, really resonates with people who love Wyoming," she said. She added there is a need for a group devoted to wilderness in the state. "There was no organization in the state of Wyoming that was a voice for wilderness," she said. "People did not appreciate the wilderness we have today, nor were they a voice for wilderness in the future." she said. Locally, the group is trying to gain wilderness status for the Rock Creek Roadless Area in the Bighorn National Forest. "People have been working for wilderness for the Rock Creek area for 30 years," said Howell. "We think it's time." The Rock Creek area encompasses 34,000 acres in Johnson County contiguous to the cloud Peak Wilderness. It is north of U.S. Highway 16 west of the state's Bud Love Wildlife Habitat Management Area. Howell said the group already has received support from organization such as Trout Unlimited, the Wyoming wildlife Federation, Sheridan Lions Club and Knights of Columbus. The Rock Creek area, she said, is a valuable elk migration corridor and has been recommended for wilderness status in the revised Bighorn National Forest plan. Around Wyoming, said Howell, "we're also protesting the Rawlins Resource Plan - it's the Great Divide area." The Bureau of Land Management's plan for the area, she said, proposed energy exploration in places that "should be wilderness." The group also is working to remove snowmobiling from the Palisades area n the border with Idaho; on wilderness areas in the Bridger-Teton and Shoshone national forests; and on protesting drilling proposals in wilderness study areas in the Big Horn Basin. The association also wants to see the Fortification Creek Wilderness Study Area - where Sheridan, Johnson and Campbell counties meet - protected. "It's being proposed for drilling (for coal-bed methane) all the way around and inside of it in the state in-holding," said Howell. "We're trying to get the state to swap the in-holding." She said the group is trying to preserve the wild areas that draw people to Wyoming. "If we lose those areas, we lose the reason why we are here".
The Wyoming Wilderness
Association office is at 325 E. Loucks St. in Sheridan. For
more information, visit www.wildwyo.org or call 672-2751. |