Environmentalists are in turf war

Many of the same wilderness advocates of the Utah Bureau of Land Management wars are gearing up for another fight — saving the forests in Utah.

It could become even nastier, however, since the battlefield is on another environmental group's turf — Utah Environmental Congress.

Utah Forest Network, a coalition of local and national environmental groups, began a year ago working quietly on reviewing the forest plans, now up for revisions, on three southern Utah national forests. In doing so, it launched a statewide survey of "roadless" or undeveloped areas in Utah's forests to come up with a statewide wilderness proposal.

The coalition includes the local groups: Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance, Save Our Canyons, Red Rock Forests and the Ogden chapter of the Sierra Club. It also draws from well-heeled national environmentalists, The Wilderness Society and American Lands. The venture is similar to that of the Utah Wilderness Coalition's campaign for BLM wilderness of 9.1 million acres in Utah's red rock desert country.

Absent from the effort is UEC, which earlier this year unveiled one of the most ambitious and comprehensive initiatives to protect 64 percent of roadless areas in Utah's six national forests.

It wasn't by design to exclude UEC, said Tim Peterson, the roadless/wilderness specialist for the relatively new group Utah Forest Network. UFN just wanted to draw on more political power by bringing in lifelong veterans of the wilderness wars, he added.

"(UEC) is a go-it-alone group," Peterson said. "We wanted not to compete with Utah Environmental Congress but attempt to offer a chorus of voices."

UEC is a little miffed by the exclusion.

"The UEC is not a go-it-alone group," said executive director Stephanie Tidwell. The organization was founded about six years ago by Denise Boggs, a well known conservationist who is now with the national law firm, WildLaw. She remains on the UEC board of directors.

"We are a coalition with individual, organization and business members representing about 30,000 people," added Tidwell. "The Utah Forest Network knows this because some of them are members of the UEC."

Peterson said the wilderness study is a work in progress, with funding coming from SUWA and Campaign for America's Wilderness. The recent focus has been on reviewing the forest plans, which has slowed down the process for a statewide wilderness plan.