VIA - DocuTicker
In one of the most contrived moves in recent memory by a land management agency, the National Park Service has reclassified 40,000 acres of Big Cypress National Preserve land that was eligible for wilderness designation to be ineligible – clearing the way for a network of off-road vehicle (ORV) trails. This quickie reclassification of lands violates both law and agency policies, according to a legal complaint filed today by Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER). Back in 1988, Congress added lands to Florida's Big Cypress National Preserve and directed the National Park Service (NPS) to study which of those lands would be suitable for designation as wilderness. Two analyses, one in 2002 and the other in 2009, concluded that the vast majority of the 147,000 acres of the Addition lands was wilderness eligible. In April 20, 2010, Pedro Ramos, Superintendent of the Preserve, signed off on a new "reanalysis" that found only 71,000 acres were eligible. This stripped wilderness eligibility from 40,000 acres – all of which are about to be declared open for building ORV trails.
This wilderness reanalysis was kept under wraps, contrary to agency policy, and was first unveiled on November 23, 2010, when NPS published its Final General Management Plan/Environmental Impact Statement for the Big Cypress Addition – thus circumventing required public involvement in wilderness eligibility decisions and pulling a bait-and-switch on the public who commented on the draft plan.
- Read the PEER complaint
- View the 12-page wilderness reanalysis
- Compare the 2009 wilderness assesment
- Trace the history of wilderness in the Big Cypress Addition
- Look at the stalled wilderness throughout the national park system
