According to today’s Missoulian, Sen. Jon Tester’s office is being a little more forthcoming this week about the wilderness bill he intends to announce Friday. See our previous post for background information. Here’s the lede . . .

There may be more ideas than acres going into an anticipated wilderness bill under construction in Montana Sen. Jon Tester’s office.

And one of those ideas may be a new name.

“There are several major components to the overall legislation (jobs through new logging opportunities, recreational access, etc.), so calling it simply a ‘wilderness bill’ is a mischaracterization,” Tester spokesman Aaron Murphy said Monday. “I’d call it a forest jobs and stewardship bill.”

Tester’s staff has stated the bill would build upon the work of three environmentalist/industry collaboration efforts. The Beaverhead-Deerlodge Partnership outlined about 322,000 acres of wilderness in the national forest land that stretches between Helena and Monida. Another 87,000 acres are suggested in the Blackfoot-Clearwater Stewardship Project. And the Three Rivers Challenge in the Yaak designates 30,000 acres as wilderness.

Read the entire article . . .

The High Country News has a lengthy but excellent piece covering some of the background and thinking behind Sen. Jon Tester’s wilderness bill. Although it focuses on the Beavercreek-Deerlodge Partnership, the article includes lots of good supplementary information that helps put Tester’s plans in context. It takes very little reading between the lines to realize that this could have a significant impact on forest management locally.

Recommended reading.

Here’s a taste . . .

They call it the Beaverhead-Deerlodge Partnership, but it’s not as warm and fuzzy as it sounds. They’ve hammered out some bold goals, determined to make both the Forest Service and more hard-line environmentalists agree to them. They want increased logging, contentious restoration projects and controversial wilderness designations that would break a 26-year-long gridlock in Montana’s wilderness politics.

Read the entire article . . .