Wilderness jackpot - The Sierra Club bulletin news for members - Nevada wilderness areas protected

Sierra, Jan-Feb, 2003 by Jennifer Hattam

From the heights of the Ireteba Peaks to the depths of Arrow Canyon, from the Joshua trees of Wee Thump to the ponderosa pines of the LaMadre Mountains, some 450,000 acres of southern Nevada wilderness are now permanently protected under legislation that was signed into law in November.

"There's a real diversity of desert landscapes in this bill," says Carrie Sandstedt, a Sierra Club conservation organizer and self-described "huge fan" of Nevada's wild places. An avid hiker and camper, Sandstedt moved from Reno to Las Vegas to help the Club and its partners in the Nevada Wilderness Coalition right for strong wildlands protection in the Clark County Conservation of Public Land and Natural Resources Act of 2002. Introduced by Nevada senators Harry Reid (D) and John Ensign (R) and representative Jim Gibbons (R), the bill designates 17 new wilderness areas and creates the 48,000-acre Sloan Canyon National Conservation Area, a petroglyph-filled expanse that a Bureau of Land Management spokesperson called "the Sistine Chapel of Native American art."

The campaign gained momentum after December 2000, when Congress set aside 757,000 acres of wilderness in the Black Rock Desert and High Rock Canyon in the northwest corner of the state (see "The Sierra Club Bulletin," May/June 2001, page 70). Emboldened by this victory--which doubled the amount of wilderness in Nevada--activists began mapping potential protected areas in the south. They wrote letters, published brochures, and gave slideshow presentations throughout the state, introducing their fellow residents to the disappearing wild beauty in their own backyards. And they met with other stakeholders to ensure that conservation was strongly represented in the public-lands bill, which also addressed recreation and development concerns in the nation's fastest-growing county. "This bill was going to happen with or without wilderness," says Sandstedt. "But the conservation community organized, and our leaders listened."

Nevada may still be best known for its slot machines, but with two big wilderness victories in under two years, gambling might have to start taking a backseat to the great outdoors.