Comment from Belle Labouvie

I’m writing to oppose any revision to the National Park Service’s wilderness stewardship policy under Director’s Order 41 that would weaken protection for wilderness study areas, lands with wilderness characteristics, or recommended, proposed, and eligible wilderness. These policies aren’t as simple as the phrase “non-binding guidance” makes them sound. They carry out the agencies’ duty, rooted in the Wilderness Act and the statutes governing these lands, to keep wild and roadless country managed so as not to impair its suitability for wilderness designation until Congress decides its fate. They hold a finite inheritance of wild land intact so that a future Congress can retain the option to protect it permanently. Once roads, motorized use, or logging are admitted into these places, the wilderness character that makes them eligible is destroyed, and no future Congress can vote it back. The loss is permanent in a way that almost nothing in public lands policy ever is. The agency has offered no reasoned justification for reversing decades of settled protection. A change of this magnitude, made without a documented basis and against the clear weight of public objection, would be arbitrary and capricious. I ask that the existing standards be preserved in full, that no revision lower the standard of care for these lands, and that our wild lands continue to be protected as they have been. I am a mother and a grandmother and need to remind you that these are public lands and are part of the inheritance my descendants deserve. You work for the people of the US, we pay your wages and we can vote you in or out. And we will.