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Puzzling that a person with Barry Rosenberg’s credentials should claim that the Idaho Department of Lands is unscrupulous and poorly managed without providing facts (Daily Bee, June 22, 2017). Perhaps in the past they were so, but a few years ago Montana’s Property and Environment Research Center, especially Holly Fretwell, published several studies that proved that in Idaho, state management of timber and recreation properties was far more efficient and profitable than federal management (www.perc.org/articles/divided-lands-state-vs-federal-management). Curiouser, Barry makes a big deal out of 114 of 2,800 acres (0.04 percent). Could there be some other motive in play?

The area in question is near a much larger area recently the subject of a misguided effort to create an exclusive range for those fickle caribbou which kept migrating into Canada. It also is in the vast expanse desired by the Wilderness Network and the Y2Y Initiative (www.Y2Y.net and www.wildernessnetwork.org). Easily scoffed at as wishful thinking until after reading www.nwri.org/the-wildlands-project/un-biodiversity-treaty-and-the -wildlands-project), www.conservationbytes.com (interview with Prof Reed Noss), www.rangemagazine.com/features/fall-03/fall03-eden and www.un.org/biodiversity.

Noteworthy is Prof Noss’ statement that “… local administrators cannot be trusted to make good conservation decisions …” They, too, often put local interests first. Imagine that. All fits in nicely with the 2005 Comprehensive Wildlife Conservation Strategy initiated by the Idaho Department of Fish & Game, with support of The Wilderness Society, The Nature Conservancy, Nature Serve and the Idaho Conservation League. Visit www.americanlandscouncil.org to get a different perspective than that regurgitated by people in Washington D.C., and on the East and West coasts. Choose for yourselves.

JEREMY CONLIN

Cocolalla