Wildlands designation raises concern about land’s future

Wyoming’s four Bighorn Basin counties are accusing the Interior Department of trying to create new wilderness without congressional approval by directing the Bureau of Land Management to inventory its wildlands and manage them for their wilderness characteristics. While that appears to be the prevailing opinion in northern Wyoming, not all commissioners or members of the public agree, and not everyone views Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar’s use of the term “wildlands” as cause for alarm. The differences of interpretation surfaced recently when Park County commissioners gathered to discuss the BLM’s new resource management plan and Salazar’s order directing the agency to update its wildlands inventory. Park County Commissioner Joe Tilden, who returned last month from a conference of Western states where Salazar’s order was discussed, told commissioners that most of those who attended see the order as illegal. “What was very disturbing to the people down there is that it ... creates a new classification of lands, wildlands,” Tilden said. As Tilden sees it, use of the term “wildlands” is an attempt to create de facto wilderness by usurping the authority of Congress. If that’s the goal — and if it’s successful — Tilden said it could potentially stifle the state’s oil and gas industry by setting areas off limits to drilling...more