Is there a compromise, an equitable solution to the oyster war? Linford (below) argues for this in this week's Marin Independent Journal. The National Park Service, the Marine Mammal Center, the EAC, and others have steadfastly refused to meet with the Lunnys to talk about the logical and fair solution. Kevin Lunny is often misrepresented as a millionaire businessman but he actually represents a very large family of DBOC owners. Spinners like Amy Trainer and Gordon Bennett use right-wing antics like planting false stories into the public arena early and often to frame the narrative their own way. The pair, weekend-naturalists, email-blast a continual stream of press releases regurgitating the same bad facts. Early on they tried to frame the narrative by introducing misleading sound bites and catchy one-liners - an approach which copies the Republican agenda.While most reputable reporters have double-checked the pair's bad facts, discovered the lies, the defamation, the mean-spirited attacks including disingenuous allegations of Koch-connections and gone forward to publish fair and balanced reports, the Trainnets have resorted to publishing their own 'stories' on a fringe blog site that wears out the old cliche "Main stream media is ignoring my story."
However, the Wilderness Act itself falls on the pragmatic side of the divide. For example, although there is indeed a general rule against, notably, commercial activity within a designated wilderness, there are exceptions to that prohibition.
Thus, the act provides that commercial animal grazing can continue in a designated wilderness if the grazing rights existed when it became a wilderness.
The act also provides for commercial activity that serves the "public purpose" (as defined by the act) of "recreational" use. That provision was applied by the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in a 2004 case to hold that wranglers could hire out their services providing pack-animals to carry camping supplies into the wilderness. The court's opinion was careful to assure that such exceptional commercial use would have a minimum impact on the wilderness.
In any case, this "public purpose" exception would not apply, for example, to logging, and if large corporate interests wanted to log western forests currently designated wilderness, they would need to reverse the wilderness designations.
Read more.
Jim Linford of Marinwood is
a semi-retired appellate attorney who has filed a pro bono amicus brief
in support of rehearing on behalf of an historic resource foundation:
A basic misunderstanding of the Wilderness Act has led to misperceptions
about the legal setting of the oyster farm case. The misunderstanding
comes from a philosophical division between wilderness purists and
wilderness pragmatists. Purists take "wilderness" to mean "pristine
wildness," while pragmatists see "wilderness" as a nuanced legal
framework where the pristine ideal can coexist with a wider range of use
and purpose, although always shaped by overarching preservationist
values.
For the purist, there can never be any commercial activity whatsoever within a wilderness area.
This
is the position taken in an amicus brief recently filed by the
Environmental Action Committee of West Marin and others, in opposition
to the request that the Ninth Circuit rehear the oyster farm case. However, the Wilderness Act itself falls on the pragmatic side of the divide. For example, although there is indeed a general rule against, notably, commercial activity within a designated wilderness, there are exceptions to that prohibition.
Thus, the act provides that commercial animal grazing can continue in a designated wilderness if the grazing rights existed when it became a wilderness.
The act also provides for commercial activity that serves the "public purpose" (as defined by the act) of "recreational" use. That provision was applied by the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in a 2004 case to hold that wranglers could hire out their services providing pack-animals to carry camping supplies into the wilderness. The court's opinion was careful to assure that such exceptional commercial use would have a minimum impact on the wilderness.
In any case, this "public purpose" exception would not apply, for example, to logging, and if large corporate interests wanted to log western forests currently designated wilderness, they would need to reverse the wilderness designations.
Read more.
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