Vermont smitten with Romance Mtn. Sierra Club pushes for legislative action to protect wilderness lands

Author: Andrea M. Glaessner

Last Saturday, a group of environmentally-conscious Vermonters, bound by a common interest in protecting the beloved "Romance Mountain" wilderness area in Middlebury's own backyard, gathered in Twilight Hall for a presentation hosted by the Sierra Club's Vermont chapter.

In equally moving speeches, Scholar in Residence in Environmental Studies Bill McKibben, joined by State Senator Pro Tempore and candidate for U.S. Congress Peter Welch, rallied the audience to take Romance Mountain back by encouraging Congressional leaders to support the passage of legislation that would deem the area federally protected wilderness. Under this protection, the land would be shielded from snowmobile and all-terrain vehicle (ATV) damage, road-building, and logging production.

Of all the points on the spectrum of land use in Vermont, from urban Burlington to pastoral farmland, to forests now tainted by logging production and ATV, use only one percent of land in Vermont is federally protected wilderness. With this percentage, Vermont lags behind its neighboring states: New Hampshire's land is two percent federally protected wilderness areas and New York boasts 6.6 percent state-designated wilderness and "wild forests."

The Vermont Wilderness Association, working with the Vermont Chapter of the Sierra Club, has developed a proposal to guide legislature in the federal designation of specific areas. Currently, the six federally designated wilderness areas in Vermont total about 60,000 acres. The Vermont Wilderness Association proposes future legislation that will designate 78,000 acres of wilderness to the Green Mountain National Forest as well as establish two new recreation areas and two new conservation areas.

This issue unfolds amid the upcoming release of the Green Mountain Forest Service's 12-year reevaluation and plan for the Green Mountain National Forest. In what Peter Sterling of the Vermont Wilderness Association calls "a slap in the face" to wilderness conservationists, the Forest Service plans to turn roughly 50 percent of wilderness land over to ATV use.

Vermonters were not quiet in response to this proposal. Out of 10,000 public comments reviewed, residents echoed similar sentiments - 95 percent rejected the plan to subject the forests to the damage to the fragile, complex mountain ecosystem caused by ATVs.

In his speech, Bill McKibben remarked on the support of his fellow Vermonters, saying, "I'm used to being told I'm a little nuts, and it's true - but not in this case. Vermonters across the state want more wild land too, particularly that beautiful chunk of land called Romance Mountain."

Calling the wilderness preservation movement and Ghandi "the two most revolutionary ideas of the 20th century," McKibben explained that "there is no virgin wilderness - everything has been touched. But we need to set some land aside for our own good. We need to prove to ourselves that we don't need to be in control of everything." According to McKibben, wilderness preservation, like the Ghandi movement, encourages humans to hold back, and allow what little wilderness we have left to live, despite the short term gains associated with letting the environment take a back seat to convenience and profit.

According to the Vermont Wilderness Association Web site, "Wilderness provides a valuable scientific benchmark against which we can measure our progress toward sustainable use of managed landscapes." Given that wilderness does not exploit the land, it is possible to examine the natural processes that occur to learn how land treats itself. Based on this knowledge, conclusions can be drawn regarding the most effective methods of land use.

The only legislation that would override the Forest Service's plan must be determined by the U.S. Congress. Currently, Senator Patrick Leahy (D-VT) and Congressman Bernie Sanders (IND-VT) are advocating this legislation. A candidate for the upcoming elections for US Congress, Senator Peter Welch (D-VT) also spoke in support of Congressional efforts to federally protect wilderness at the Twilight presentation. Welch commented, "If I am elected, I will carry on that tradition of preserving wilderness by enacting federal legislation for it."

Under what Welch referred to as "the worst leadership we've had in this country since Warren G. Harding," America has suffered as a whole, especially the environment, as a result of the administration's seemingly negligent environmental decisions, he explained. According to Welch, "This upcoming election is about putting a check and balance against this radical leadership by voting in a democratic Congress. The bottom line question is whether this country stands up to say we're going to put a monkey wrench in the Bush administration."

The Bush administration has consistently supported the Green Mountain National Forest Service and VAST in encouraging the establishment of snowmobile trail networks in the mountains. A federal bill would protect land from the damaging effects of vehicle use given that the only activities not allowed in wilderness are those requiring mechanized or motorized equipment.

According to the Vermont Wilderness Association (VWA), in drafting the proposal, "conflicts with the existing VAST trail network were minimized. In total, this proposal would affect 21 miles of secondary snowmobile trails, three-tenths of one percent of a system reported to be 7,000 miles in length and growing. We are asking VAST to sacrifice this portion of its trail system so that Vermont's biggest and best wilderness area can be established. We do not make this request lightly. There is no greater gift that snowmobilers could make to future generations."

The proposed Romance Mountain Wilderness is located in the northern half of the Green Mountain National Forest, in the nearby towns of Hancock, Ripton and Rochester. The area includes five mountains - Monastery Mountain, Worth Mountain, Romance Mountain, Mount Horrid and Philadelphia Peak - all with altitudes above 3,000 feet.

According to the VWA, "The area is a rare ecological gem. It contains many patches of large, mature northern hardwoods, the longest section of roadless and trail-free ridgeline on the Green Mountain National Forest, and the headwaters of Bingo Brook, one of the most pristine, high-quality trout streams in Vermont."

In 1911, philanthropist Joseph Battell left the core of the area - Monastery Mountain to Worth Mountain to Romance Mountain - to be used by Middlebury College as a park. In his will, according to the VWA, Battell directed the trustees of these lands to "preserve as far as reasonably may be the forests of said park, and neither to cut nor permit to be cut thereon any trees whatsoever except such as are dead or down and such as it may be necessary to cut in making and repairing needful roads; it being a principal object of this [will] to preserve intact such wild lands as a specimen of the original Vermont forest."

Despite Battell's intentions that the lands remain forever wild, the college sold the lands without restrictions to the Forest Service in the 1930s and 1950s. It was the sale of the Romance Mountain lands that prompted the federal government to create the northern unit of the Green Mountain National Forest.

The Sierra Club and the Vermont Wilderness Association sent a crucial message to the audience last Saturday: "Now is the critical time to reverse the direction in which these lands are headed."