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Big
Sur Wilderness Bill Passes Congress
by Kelsey Jordahl
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Lupines
brighten the Santa Lucia Trail as hikers make their way to the summit of Junipero
Serra in the soon-to-be Bear Canyon Wilderness Addition. |
Both houses of the
U.S. Congress have approved Representative Sam Farr’s Big Sur Wilderness
and Conservation Act of 2002 which would protect about 55,000 acres of Central
Coast land as wilderness. As we go to press the bill is on the desk of President
Bush who is expected to sign it.
The bill represents the largest wilderness additions in California since the 1994
California Desert Protection Act and the first new wilderness in Monterey County
in ten years. It will increase the wilderness area in the county by nearly 25%,
adding over 34,000 acres to the Ventana Wilderness and more than doubling the
size of the Silver Peak Wilderness with over 17,000 additional acres. The bill
also designates over 2,700 acres in Pinnacles National Monument.
The bill was passed in the lame-duck session of Congress after extraordinary effort
by Sam Farr to gain support in the House of Representatives and by Senator Barbara
Boxer to move the bill through the Senate.
Gordon Johnson, a founding board member of the Ventana Wilderness Alliance, commented,
“We have been working for over five years to achieve permanent protection
for these last unprotected federal lands in the Big Sur backcountry. We would
like to thank Representative Sam Farr and Senator Barbara Boxer for their work
to permanently protect these outstanding wildlands as designated wilderness.”
The Big Sur bill is the first piece of Boxer’s proposed statewide wilderness
legislation to be enacted. Boxer’s full bill would protect 2.5 million acres
and designate 22 wild and scenic rivers in California. Boxer intends to reintroduce
her bill when the next session of Congress opens. The California Wild Heritage
Campaign, a coalition of conservation groups including the Sierra Club, and the
Ventana Wilderness Alliance is working to build support for this measure.
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