Seeds of Tester wilderness bill rooted in Timber Wars

There was a time, not so very long ago, when environmentalists living in the shadow of big timber, in the logging lands of the Yaak, didn't sleep in the same bed two nights in a row. Cabins burned mysteriously in the dark. Cars were vandalized. People were attacked, literally beaten for beliefs. Out in the forests, logging equipment was sabotaged. Woods work was monkey-wrenched. In town, the U.S. Forest Service was crushed between opposing forces, retreating always. “The Timber Wars,” said Robyn King, “were absolutely fierce. We've had a long history of extreme polarization and violence up here.” And for a quarter-century, she said, “the fighting got us nowhere.” No new wilderness lands. No logs for the mill. “Everyone lost, and no one gained,” said King, who heads the Yaak Valley Forest Council, a conservation group. “We all knew, deep down, that we couldn't afford to continue to be adversaries. It was tearing our communities apart.” And so King came down out of the Yaak, again and again and again, to meet with tree-huggers and tree-cutters, motorheads and wilder-nuts, everyone with a stake. She told them what was on her mind and, more important, asked what was on theirs. And slowly, carefully, steadily King replaced fixed philosophies with familiar faces, brought forest management down to the neighborhood level, built bridges and created coalitions and surveyed the common ground. It was, she said, “often painful.”...Missoulian