Linn Kincannon

What do you think about the proposal to designate the Boulder-White Clouds wilderness?

“The Idaho Conservation League and conservationists across Idaho and throughout the country would like to see the area designated as wilderness, protected forever as wilderness. Because there’s no guarantee that what we have here today and what we enjoy about the area will continue to exist in the future. We just don’t know what kind of development the future could bring…It’s not about me and my opportunities. It is about the future… We need to designate more now that can meet the needs of 350 million people or however many people we are going to have in the next 20 or 30 years, and provide for wildlife habitat. We don’t want to lose all of our wildlife. What kind of country would that be? Where we as Americans value the wildness of the West so much. What would that be like if we lost our wildlife, or just put them in zoos or fields somewhere?”

Can a compromise be reached between the different user-groups?

“It has been a generation since any wilderness was designated in Idaho, and there are millions of acres eligible for that kind of protection. I think that we have all shown on all sides that we are good at gridlock. Now we need to figure out how we can move forward, and actually come to some kind of agreement about how to protect some of the places. Many of the interest groups who work on public lands work to preserve their access, and certainly that is a good goal. We try to work to preserve the land itself and the wildlife habitat. For us, that is the most important issue.”

What do you find valuable about wilderness?

“In our world, everywhere I go I can hear the sound of engines. Even in my house, my refrigerator makes noise. It’s important to me, and our members that you could hear the wind and trees. You could hear a brook babbling. You could hear the howl of a wolf in the distance. And it’s hard to find those quiet places anymore. There are plenty of places on public land, and there should be, where folks can ride their motorcycles and ATVs. But there needs to be some places that are quiet and offer these opportunities for solitude that are so important to Americans who own these lands together…Wilderness is a uniquely American idea, the protection of country exactly as it was when the settlers first got here. It is to preserve our heritage of what America was about.”