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The Wilderness Workshop, in partnership with the Colorado Mountain Club, the Wilderness Society and the Colorado Environmental Coalition, is advocating for the designation of several hundred thousand acres of new wilderness on the White River National Forest and nearby public lands in western Colorado. This bold vision, the Hidden Gems Wilderness Campaign, will create several brand-new, standalone wilderness areas, while at the same time expanding our beloved existing wilderness areas. The White River National Forest comprises a landscape of national importance: it’s the nation’s most recreated national forest; it encompasses the headwaters of the Colorado River; and it occupies a vital position in what is known to conservation biologists as the “spine of the continent,” a key continent-scale migration corridor. Sadly, its western portion is currently at risk of becoming a national sacrifice zone for natural-gas and oil-shale development. Preserving large portions of this landscape as designated wilderness will secure a priceless legacy for all Americans. Much of what makes the White River National Forest so popular is its wild and scenic backcountry. Some 750,000 acres of it – out of the Forest’s total of 2.25 million acres – has already been designated as wilderness (the areas in dark green in the map). These include such “crown jewels” as the Maroon Bells-Snowmass, Holy Cross and Flat Tops Wilderness Areas. However, most of this existing wilderness is of the high-elevation rock-and-ice variety. The “hidden gems” we’re targeting in this campaign are mainly at the ecologically more diverse middle elevations and are more important for more wildlife species on a year-round basis. The Hidden Gems Campaign has its own website, www.whiteriverwild.org – please visit it for detailed descriptions, maps and photos of all the proposed wilderness additions. |