Rewilding the continent

Forty years is a blip in the life of an old redwood but a venerable age for a contentious law like the Wilderness Act. Today more than 100 million acres of public land in the United States fall under the protection of a federal wilderness designation. But factors such as waning biodiversity and ongoing climate change may influence the design of future preservation. Conservationist and lapsed monkeywrencher (“that was two decades ago!” ) Dave Foreman crystallized a vision last year that he calls “rewilding” North America. The idea is to look at the entire continent and identify megalinkages of land so mountain lions, wolves, wolverines and jaguars can flourish. “I really want to do serious conservation on the scale of the continent,” he says. “Rewilding just isn’t going to work in a lot of places that are way too settled, too developed, like Indiana, north Texas or Rhode Island.” But it can work along a swath of the Pacific Coast from Canada down through the Cascades and the Sierra to the coastal ranges of northern Baja, Foreman says, or in the vast arctic boreal lands such as Canada’s Thelon River, below, where he spent three weeks exploring. Foreman details his vision Friday at a two-day wilderness conference at the University of Utah’s Stegner Center. Ranchers, off-road vehicle advocates, environmentalists and an official speaking about the Bush administration’s wilderness policies are also on the roster. The conference kicks off with “10 Reasons Why Wilderness Matters Now More Than Ever.” Go to www.law.utah.edu/pdf/stegner/2004symposia.pdf.