[pct-l] Thru-Hikers and cans (was Scary bear story &nothanging food)

[msaenz at mve-architects.com (Mike Saenz)]

Semantics.

The USFS, being a branch of the US Dept. of Agriculture, is headed by a
political appointee.

Given enough political pressure, ANY policy can be enacted, changed or
repealed.

I imagine if a few key congressional/senate committee members make a
call to Ann Veneman, Dale Bosworth (current chief of forestry) would
soon get "marching orders" to send down the pecking order to our local
forest managers...

Do any other national forests require bear cans? If it's only
California, then if enough constituents lobby for a change in this
policy, then it would be a relatively easy matter of our Federal
Representatives applying the correct pressure on the right people to
make the change. It's still high school civics concepts.

The question really is: do the majority of people who use the national
forests object to the policy of requiring bear cans?

Remember: it took only a vocal lobbying group to force the passage of
"The American Disabilities Act (ADA)", which benefits less than 1% of
the population. (I reference this over and over because it directly
affects me and I wholeheartedly disagree with it. But it illustrates my
point.)

M i c h a e l   S a e n z
McLarand Vasquez Emsiek & Partners, Inc.
A r c h i t e c t u r e    P l a n n i n g    I n t e r i o r s
w  w  w  .  m  v  e  -  a  r  c  h  i  t  e  c  t  s  .  c  o  m


-----Original Message-----
From: Hiker [mailto:hiker@godlikebuthumble.com] 
Sent: Monday, July 26, 2004 12:30 PM
To: pct-l@mailman.backcountry.net
Subject: RE: [pct-l] Thru-Hikers and cans (was Scary bear story
&nothanging food)

At 09:53 AM 7/26/04, Mike Saenz wrote:
>But when the rubber meets the road (or the boots hit the trail?), when
>these laws are passed, we as citizens are obliged to comply with them.


The bear can rules are NOT laws that are "passed."

They are administrative rules imposed by the Forest Managers for their 
forests. There is no way to "vote them out" or change the rule via the 
normal legislative process that we learned in Civics class.

Depending on the "rule" there may or may not be a review process and a 
comment period, but in the end the Forest Manager can pretty much do 
whatever he wants within his own forest, without much oversight from the

USFS region, or from Washington DC.

About the only recourse a citizen's group has is a lawsuit, if they can 
find a law that the Forest Manager's rule is breaking.

For example: a good argument can be made that small town politics in
Bishop 
California, with old alliances and feuds have more to do with Inyo NF 
regulations on Pack Outfits,  than sound forest management practices.

Also, the whole Bear Can debacle can be traced back to a relationship 
between the Inyo NF wilderness manager, and her counterpart in SE/KI 
National Park. Once the personal decision had been made by those two
that 
bear cans were the only acceptable method of protecting food in the 
backcountry, no amount of logic or argument was going to change the
mandate.

Since SE/KI and Inyo are the principal powers in the Sierra Interagency 
Black Bear Group, bear cans are here to stay in the whole Sierra.

Have Fun, all IMHO.

Hiker


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