"The Great Wilderness Compromise"

PBS "NOW" heads out West on Friday, January 5 to examine a controversial
effort to find common ground on wilderness protection in the reddest state
in America: Idaho. Correspondent Jon Christensen follows Rep. Mike Simpson,
the Republican sponsor of a compromise wilderness bill, from the halls of
Congress to the peaks of the White Cloud Mountains. To break through the
polarization that has stymied efforts to protect wilderness in Idaho for a
generation, Simpson has worked hand-in-hand with environmentalist Rick
Johnson of the Idaho Conservation League for six years carefully crafting a
local compromise that gives something to everyone, but none of them
everything that they want. "NOW" talked with residents, ranchers, off-road
vehicle fans, and wilderness advocates, including singer-songwriter Carole
King, an ardent opponent of the compromise, which would give public land to
small towns in the region for future growth ‹ the most controversial of the
bills many trade-offs. Exchanging public land for wilderness is a tug-of-war
that has entered into a number of wilderness bills that were seeking passage
in the last session of Congress. And the Idaho compromise will be among the
first bills put on the congressional agenda in the new year. "NOW" offers a
window into the passions that drive the wedges ‹ and the ongoing quest for
common ground‹ in western wilderness politics.

To find your local show time, check http://www.pbs.org/now/sched.html.

You can also see the entire 20-minute report plus additional online features
after January 5 at http://www.pbs.org/now/.

For more information about the program, which is part of a longer
documentary in progress on wilderness politics in the West, e-mail
jonchristensen@stanford.edu.

Thanks! And Happy New Year!

Jon Christensen
Research Fellow, Center for Environmental Science and Policy
Ph.D. Candidate, History Department
Stanford University