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Outside Magazine, March 2005

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As a Matter of Fact, Money Does Grow on Trees (cont.)

NUMBERS AND STORIES

True enough, and here's the good news: We already have the means to place a fair value on environmental elements. There may not be a stock exchange for trading wilderness futures, but that doesn't mean its worth can't be measured.

"Imagine your arm was severed by a faulty product," says John Loomis. "You'd sue the manufacturer. How much is your arm worth? There's no market for that. But that doesn't mean we drop the case. We work with the data we have and come up with a reasonable estimate."

It seems like an odd inversion—greens basing their case on dollars and cents—but it needs to happen, and it's starting to. In May 2003, Peter Metcalf, CEO of Salt Lake City–based Black Diamond Equipment, a manufacturer of climbing gear, protested Gale Norton's wilderness-killing deal by proposing that his industry move its twice-yearly convention, the Outdoor Retailer trade show, out of Salt Lake City, a decision that would have cost the city $24 million in annual revenue. A longtime climber, Metcalf had never expressed his love for wilderness in monetary terms.

"But then I thought, Wait a minute. Money does matter," Metcalf told me. "And it's on our side."

"Wild and undeveloped places are the economic backbone of the outdoor recreation industry," Metcalf wrote in a Salt Lake Tribune opinion piece, where he called upon politicians to "recognize the economic values of public lands as a top priority, not a secondary consideration."

The threat stirred then-governor Leavitt to form a statewide task force to identify and promote the state's "wildland gems." (Peter Metcalf was one of its first appointed members.) Leavitt's successor, Olene Walker, later created a plan to break Utah's wilderness stalemate by having county-based committees nominate land for full federal protection. The Outdoor Retailer show stayed in Salt Lake City, and the Outdoor Industry Association mounted a "Business for Wilderness" campaign to protect roadless areas and western wildlands.

"When he was confronted with that economic message, Leavitt felt compelled to respond," says Scott Groene, director of the Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance, the state's leading wilderness-advocacy group. "This discussion is usually presented as wilderness versus jobs. That was the first time we had an honest discussion about wilderness plus jobs."

Without those discussions, people whose businesses depend on healthy rivers and forests will be left to hang. Just talk to Larry McQuarrie, a self-described "supporter of responsible timber harvest" who owns the Sportsman's Cove Lodge, in Saltery Cove, Alaska, a fishing lodge on the eastern shore of Prince of Wales Island, bordered by the Tongass National Forest.

Talk about out-of-whack economics: In 2002, the Forest Service recorded a net loss of $35 million in the Tongass on timber sales that supported just 195 jobs. That's a subsidy of $179,000 per job. Saltery Cove is a place where the battle over the roadless rule hits hard: Since the Bush administration scuttled the rule in the Tongass, the forest around Sportsman's Cove Lodge has been slated for harvesting. If that happens, McQuarrie may lose his drinking water to contamination. At the very least, he'll be left with a fishing lodge surrounded by a clear-cut, which isn't the most enticing scene to put on a brochure. Logging the cove would produce an estimated $400,000 in annual wages for five years. McQuarrie's payroll, by contrast, tops $500,000 every year, in perpetuity. And he does it with no Forest Service subsidy.

Or talk to Tim Alpers, a third-generation rancher in California's eastern Sierra who makes his living raising trophy trout. Alpers is a Republican and a conservationist whose economic survival depends on unspoiled wilderness. Without the cool, clear stream that runs through his property, his fish would die. Without the weekend fishermen driving up from Los Angeles, his business would die.

Karl Rappold, who runs Black Angus cattle on 13,000 acres along Montana's Rocky Mountain Front, also understands the value of wildlands. When the Bush administration proposed leasing federal land near Rappold's ranch for natural-gas development four years ago, Rappold became a born-again wilderness advocate. "This land has hardly changed since Lewis and Clark came through," he told me. "I want to see it stay the way it is, without industrialization."

Here's the kicker: Rappold's protest worked. Because the message came from a traditionally Republican base (ranchers like Rappold, along with fishing and hunting advocates, opposed the expanded drilling plan), the Bush administration announced last October that it would shelve the proposal—at least for now.

This is the new story of the West. Conservation is now as much about economics as it is about less tangible aspects like the solace of open space. And it's not just about the West: These arguments can also play out in African wildlife habitats or Central American jungles. Wilderness is a commodity that no longer just tugs at the heartstrings. It's become abundantly clear that it tugs at the purse strings, too.

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