The faithful six readers of this blog know that one of my perennial concerns has been the threats facing the Knowles-Nelson Stewardship Program. The most insidious of these is the power the Joint Finance Committee has exercised. Currently, any member of the Joint Finance Committee can anonymously stop any Stewardship grant that comes before the Committee without stating any reason and without any public hearing on that action.
That is stupid, cowardly, and as egregrious example of mis-government that I have encountered in almost thirty years of working in state and local government in Wisconsin.
Charles Carlin of Gathering Waters offers an effective description of the latest abuse of power by some JFC member. That legislator has stopped the Pelican River conservation/timber easement of 70,000 acres in northeast Wisconsin. This was to have been the latest in a series of Forest Legacy easements in northern Wisconsin. They consist of the state using Stewardship and other funds to buy easements on large holdings of land in northern Wisconsin. Typically the land is owned by large timber companies. The easements stops the land from being subdivided and developed, enables the public to use it for many types of outdoor recreation including hunting, fishing, hiking, etc, and permits the land to be managed for forest products. While the easement focuses on land, it also preserves water resources and the holdings are so large they almost always contain rivers, streams, and wild lakes.
Photo by Joshua Mayer
The DNR Board supported this easement unanimously (meaning the conservation and more liberal or moderate members agreed this is a great project). The transaction had been years in the making and, as far as I can tell, had not been controversial.
The Joint Finance Committee would be within its rights to PUBLICLY review and act on this purchase. It's expensive and involves a huge, multi-county swath of land. Moreover the Forest Legacy Easements deserve public review and discussion. For all the good they do, they funnel millions of dollars to wealthy landowners or businesses who already have the ability to manage the land for timber. In many cases, the public already enjoyed access through the Managed Forest Law. They have also consumed millions of dollars to secure public access to lands in a part of the state where millions of acres are already in public ownership. One could argue that some of those dollars would be better spent in southern Wisconsin, where there's not nearly so much public land and a lot more of the public. BUT THOSE ARE QUESTIONS AND ISSUES THAT SHOULD BE RESOLVED IN PUBLIC DISCUSSIONS AND PUBLIC ACTIONS.
Gathering Waters has produced a link that enables you to contact your legislators easily and quickly and urges all of you to do so asap. Now is a good time to do so because we have some new legislators taking office. Some might not know much about this issue and all should learn that their constituents care about it.
The anonymous JFC legislator responsible for this action needs to review the finest moment of the late, great comic strip Pogo and apply it to him or herself: “We have met the enemy and he is us.”
Topf Wells, Madison Audubon advocacy committee
