Nothing collaborative about forest plan

Bob Brown, the ultimate politician and mentor to Michael Jamison, and Michael Jamison, a serious politician wannabe, have successfully co-authored an article on multiple newspaper opinion pages that must be answered.

These men were the instigators, founders, and promoters of the infamous Whitefish Range Partnership (WRP) boondoggle that Flathead National Forest (FNF) is planning on using for their so-called collaborative forest management planning input representing special interests despite the outrage from the true, large, environmental community.

The problem is: There was nothing collaborative about the WRP. The committee members were carefully selected, and they met in secret, to accommodate only a few “pseudo-environmentalists” that would “play ball” and agree to carve up the FNF to satisfy human motorized access and logging usage while denying real environmentalists from serving on the WRP that would look out for wildlife retaining old insufficient and inadequate wilderness and obtaining new wilderness designations ahead of human needs to conquer and destroy.

What else would one expect from an old Republican chairman and a young, brash, political aspirant?

Furthermore, the long arduous process of subsequent FNF so-called collaborative forest management planning revision team meetings was likewise not really collaborative but merely done for “show.” You can fool most of the people most of the time. These lifetime tenured public sector FNF employees are masters at slight-of-hand. They are appointed by, and are financially supported by, politicians who are elected by people voters, while animals cannot vote.

Meanwhile, the animals in the forest are in grave jeopardy from loss of wildlife habitat to logging companies, loss of protection by the Endangered Species Act from efforts of loggers and snowmobilers and politicians, and the threat of new and renewed hunting and trapping licenses from a very small vocal group of maniacal Montanans.

All this provoked by a couple of politicians wanting to have their way. No compromise here. Can all of you people be fooled all of the time?

— Bill Baum