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Coalition seeks wilderness `adopters' Environmentalists want to map possible future protection areas By PAUL FATTIG ASHLAND -- If you know of a wild area filled with solitude, Erin Madden would like a word with you. She is grass-roots coordinator for the Oregon Natural Resources Council which, along with the Ashland-based Headwaters environmental coalition, is looking for public assistance in an adopt-a-wilderness campaign. Basically, it calls for folks to help inventory and identify wild lands in Oregon that could qualify for protection in the federal wilderness system. "We are looking for `adopters' that can help map an area and be an advocate for protection," Madden said. "These are roadless areas that have all the characteristics of wilderness areas but are still vulnerable to logging and building." A slide show and discussion on how the public can get involved is set at 7 p.m. Thursday at the Headwaters Environmental Center, 84 Fourth St. In addition to Madden, speakers include Wendell Wood, ONRC field representative in Southern Oregon, and Robert Lonsdorf, conservation policy coordinator for Headwaters. Headwaters is organizing the effort in Southern Oregon. Oregon has an estimated 3 million acres of roadless areas on national and Bureau of Land Management forests, Madden said. Much of that land was designated as potential wilderness in the 1970s and early 1980s when Congress was considering increasing Oregon's wilderness, she said. When the last large wilderness act was passed in 1984, Congress added some 850,000 acres of wilderness but released about 2 million acres of potential wilderness. The release language called for the Forest Service to complete new forest plans each decade. "Those updated forest plans are coming due again," Madden said. "We want those new wildernesses included in those plans." The campaign likely will be opposed by timber industry officials and others who fought the early wilderness designations, she said. Although no member of Congress has yet taken up the cause, all four Democratic U.S. representatives from Oregon have indicated they support the value of looking at potential wilderness designation for roadless areas of more than 1,000 acres, she said. While she expects opposition, she also believes the public will support more wilderness designation. "The opportunities for solitude are ever-decreasing," she said. "But the biggest thing that affects everybody, whether they use a roadless area or not, is drinking water. Roadless areas provide some of the cleanest drinking water in the country." Wilderness also helps ensure the diversity of plants and animals, she said. "These are islands of habitat in a sea of clearcuts," she said. "This phase of the campaign is to build community support. And it is grass-roots community support that will make it happen." Mail Tribune Copyright � The Mail Tribune 1999, Medford, Oregon USA