A Wilderness River

In his Fall bqr article, Wilderness, Motorized Rafts, and the Grand Canyon, Mark Grisham provides a creative, outfitter’s version of the wilderness history at Grand Canyon. Below I’ll attempt a less-creative, river running conservationist’s version and address some of his relevant points later. The significant issues at hand are the importance of Wilderness to the future of the Canyon and its implications for guiding.
Grand Canyon River Guides, first and foremost, is dedicated to “Protecting the Grand Canyon.” Wilderness provides the highest level of protection afforded by any land designation. No other classification protects public lands, national parks included, better. In fact, none comes close.
Congress passed the Wilderness Act in 1964,
In order to assure that an increasing population, accompanied by expanding settlement and growing mechanization, does not occupy and modify all areas within the United States…leaving no lands designated for preservation and protection in their natural condition…
Congress’ motivation was simply to “secure for the American people of present and future generations the benefits of an enduring resource of wilderness” free from the encroachments of a hurried, noisy, ecologically destructive industrial free-for-all.
Congress also recognized that wilderness designation provides an important layer of protection not guaranteed by National Park status alone. It required the National Park Service to inventory all roadless areas, including Grand Canyon, for wilderness suitability and provide interim protection of wilderness character. One needs only to drive to the South Rim to experience the full potential for urbanization in a “protected” national park. Wilderness’ most obvious benefit is the prohibition of development including roads, administrative or commercial buildings, power lines, suspension bridges, cable cars, etc.
A second wilderness benefit, the mandate to provide “outstanding opportunities for solitude and a primitive and unconfined type of recreation,” is often referred to as the “wilderness experience.” Within wilderness, the agency is required to provide recreational opportunities by first protecting the wilderness’ ecological integrity, and secondly limiting, when necessary, the frequency of encounters between individuals and groups. On the river this can be accomplished through group size and launch limits grounded in ecological and social science research. This approach allows the individual to derive her or his “experience” based on an intact ecosystem free from crowds.
The Wilderness Act defines wilderness as “an area of undeveloped Federal land retaining its primeval character and influence…which is protected and managed so as to preserve its natural conditions…” This third benefit, the mandate protecting natural abiotic processes such as flooding and fire, as well as biotic integrity, provides the legal framework for protection and restoration of native species. Ecological and experiential protection benefits of wilderness are tied directly to the minimum requirement concept discussed below.
Wilderness is defined as “an area where the earth and its community of life are untrammeled [uncontrolled] by man…” Wilderness “management,” an apparent contradiction of terms, applies only to human induced influences that impair wilderness character. Recreational use often creates the most conspicuous impacts, but human activities such as predator control or fire suppression (or dam construction) often result in widespread ecological degradation. Short-term intervention, such as prescribed burning, predator reintroduction (such as wolves or pikeminnows) or modification of dam operations may be necessary to restore naturalness. Long-term preservation requires naturally ignited fires to burn on a landscape scale, protection of all native species in natural patterns of abundance and distribution, and, perhaps, dam removal.
In wilderness, it is imperative that any management intervention in natural processes or visitor experience consist of the minimum necessary to achieve explicit, mutually agreed upon goals conforming to law and a management plan subject to public scrutiny. This means that if an action is deemed necessary, such as restoring natural fire or reducing recreational impacts, the agency should consider the least invasive methods first. This rigorous application of the precautionary approach (do no harm) allows for necessary action, but avoids heavy handed, irreversible management techniques. This fundamental tenet of the minimum requirement concept is the cornerstone of wilderness management and it applies to all administrative actions conducted in wilderness.
In summary, wilderness protection provides the best long-term assurance for the full spectrum of natural process to operate freely while allowing the greatest opportunity for individuals to explore that environment without impairing it.
Of course, only Congress can actually designate a wilderness area. While this hasn’t happened yet at Grand Canyon, Congress also implicitly “designated” in 1964 roadless portions of Grand Canyon and all other similar National Park units as wilderness study areas. Grand Canyon produced a valid wilderness proposal submitted to the Secretary of Interior. National Park Service policy requires that “proposed” wilderness areas be managed the same as designated wilderness and with the expectation of eventual wilderness designation (usdi 1999, Section 6.3.1). Until Congress addresses the wilderness question through legislation, the Park Service is required to manage most of the park, including the Colorado

River as wilderness.
Prior to completion of the current wilderness recommendation, the Park Service allowed a substantial increase in use. After the Wilderness Act was passed in 1964, visitor numbers on the river burgeoned from about 550 people annually to nearly 10,000 in 1970. The agency recognized the need for new regulations to counteract the resulting degradation and embarked on a two and a half million dollar, ten-year river-wilderness planning effort (usdi 1970:8; 1980). In 1980 the agency produced a plan that conformed to wilderness experiential and ecological standards by spreading out most use over six months, reducing group size, and phasing out motors. Motors are prohibited by the Wilderness Act (Section 4(c)). It also increased the commercial allocation by about eighteen percent in order to facilitate the transition from motors to oars.
In response, outfitters convinced Utah’s Senator Hatch to insert an amendment to the 1981 Department of Interior appropriation bill withholding funds necessary to implement the 1980 river plan. Although the legislation applied only for 1981, the Park Service’s upper echelons disregarded the Wilderness Act, its own regulations and policies, ecological and experiential protection, and extensive public involvement. The result was the 1981 river plan that institutionalized crowding and congestion, increased use, and motors, and avoided hard decisions regarding ecological impacts from dam operations and recreational use.
The Park Service is currently revising its Colorado River Management Plan (crmp). Two big issues, wilderness protection and non-commercial access will have to be addressed. The non-commercial folks have a twenty-year waiting list to get a trip, and large groups, dam operations, motorboats, and helicopter exchanges continue to impact the Canyon’s ecological and experiential aspects. Although most conservationists’ concerns lie with continued impacts to the Canyon’s ecological and experiential aspects, the overriding concern for the 29 million-a-year river running industry is the prospect of phasing out motors.
In his bqr article, Mark Grisham states wilderness advocates endorse substantial reductions in commercial use. Neither the Grand Canyon Wilderness Alliance (representing five million members), the Arizona Wilderness Coalition nor the Sierra Club have endorsed any such proposal. Achieving wilderness goals by reducing recreational impacts through reducing group size limits and spreading out use, and phasing out motors does not demand a reduction in the number of visitors enjoying the river (see Wilderness and the End of Guiding, bqr Volume 13, No.1). The current crmp process allows us the opportunity to explore a range of alternatives regarding ecological protection and access issues.
Mark further asserts that “motorized trips are the principal reason why Grand Canyon river trips are accessible to a very broad range of the general public, from young children to the elderly, to those with even severe disabilities…” Actually, professionally guided trips, oar or motor, provide access to those who don’t know how to run the river (or don’t know people who do) but can afford that service’s cost. Commercial trips are expensive, affordable principally to society’s upper income levels. For example, about fifty percent of passengers surveyed make over $100,000 a year, an economic elite representing about eight percent of American society (Hall and Shelby 2000; Jonas 2002). Suggestions that commercial trips, motor or otherwise, provide “greater and broader public access” are disingenuous at best. While opportunities for expanding access to currently disenfranchised publics exist (see Crumbo 1998), the industry has yet to seriously promote real improvements in access for these groups.
Wilderness designation would assure the highest level of protection of the Canyon’s ecological and experiential treasures. It would not decrease and would probably increase the opportunities for the broadest range of access for the American public. Guiding opportunities would remain and the “unique spirit of the river community” could celebrate for decades knowing we did our best to preserve the Canyon we cherish.
Kim Crumbo
References:
Crumbo, Kim. 1996. Wilderness Management at Grand Canyon: “Waiting for Godot?” International Journal of Wilderness 2(3):19–23.
Crumbo, Kim. 1998. “Expand the ‘Spectrum.” Boatman’s Quarterly Review 11(4):18.
Hall, Troy, and Shelby, Bo. 2000. 1998 Colorado River Boater Study, Grand Canyon National Park. Report prepared for Grand Canyon Association and Grand Canyon National park, 195 pp.
Jonas, Lillian M. 2002. Historic Profile of Colorado River Users: An Overview and Integration of Existing Data. Report prepared for Grand Canyon National Park.
USDI, NPS. 1970. Wilderness Study, Grand Canyon National Park, Arizona. August 1970. 17 pages.
USDI, NPS. 1980. Colorado River Management Plan, Grand Canyon National Park, Arizona. 36 pages plus appendices.
USDI, NPS. 1999. Reference Manual RM 41: Wilderness Preservation and Management. 80 pages.