Wyden, Merkley propose 16,000 acres of eastern Oregon wilderness

Oregon's two senators today proposed adding about 16,000 acres to the system of federally protected wilderness areas. A land swap between private landholders and the federal Bureau of Land Management would create two new wilderness areas near the John Day River, Sens. Ron Wyden and Jeff Merkley said. One of the landowners involved in the potential swap is the Christian youth organization Young Life, whose Washington Family Ranch camp near the town of Antelope occupies the former home of the followers of Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh. "Oregonians have a deep connection to their land," Wyden said. "This legislation will strengthen that relationship by creating two wilderness areas that will preserve these natural treasures for generations to come and will serve as a hopeful postscript to the saga of the Rajneeshee colony." Under the proposal, which is subject to an appraisal, the BLM would receive approximately 8,821 acres in exchange for 12,323 acres going to Young Life and two other land owners to create the Horse Heaven and Cathedral Rock wilderness areas. The deal would also put a five-mile stretch of the river into public ownership. Conservationists praised the proposal...read more

Senator Wyden, wilderness by law is an area:

...where the earth and its community of life are untrammeled by man, where man himself is a visitor who does not remain.

You are severing, not strengthening their relationship to the land.