Battles have raged over the Front for decades. First it was roads and logging. Then it was dams for irrigation and flood control, followed by oil and gas exploration. Recently it was hardrock mineral exploration. As battles raged, the "cost of development" began to leak into the public consciousness. Generally ranchers want the land to remain as it has always been -- a wish that is shared by many other Montanans.

But not all.

As skirmishes over the future of the front escalated into full-scale political warfare and it became ever more apparent that those advocating development at all costs were gradually being driven from the field, a few knowledgeable and mercenary individuals filed mineral claims on key sections along the Front for speculative purposes. Their real plan was to trade those claims for cash if those who wished to conserve the land won out in Court or in Congress.

Because of the Front's nationwide scrutiny, a rush by developers mentality, and Montanan's overwhelming wish to protect the land's integrity, the then Lewis & Clark National Forest Supervisor placed a ten-year moratorium on oil and gas leasing and exploration, and the Chief of the U.S. Forest Service inacted a two-year moratorium on hardrock mineral leasing. Both moratoriums drew overwhelming public support. Finally the Front was withdrawn from new mineral leasing for a 20-year "time out" while the political process sorted through the land's future designation.

Today there are few Montanans without an opinion on whether or not the Front should be maintained in its present condition for futurity -- of those, only a very small percentage supports development in any guise. But nationally? How important is the Front to residents of Tallahasee? Of Martha's Vinyard? Of DeeCee?

The oil and gas people tell us that considerable hydrocarbons lie beneath the Front. And it may be true. It may also be true that the handful of crusty old ranchers clinging to a past way of life are social dinosaurs, and that conservationists who try to preserve the Front in its natural state are selfish elitists who try to unfairly impose their values on all Americans.

But the opposite may be true, too. Hal Borland once wrote: "The most unhappy thing about conservation is that it is never permanent. Save a priceless woodland or an irreplaceable mountain today, and tomorrow it is threatened from another quarter. Man, our most ingenious predator, sometimes seems determined to destroy the precious treasures of his own environment."

That seems a quite succinct description of today's Rocky Mountain Front, doesn't it?

 

Next week? Another walk on the wild side.