Bush has been hinting strongly that he might seek to overturn the U.S. Forest Service's roadless area conservation rule. This initiative, if allowed to stand, would prohibit roadbuilding and logging in 58.5 million acres of national forests, scattered across 38 states -- land that many people mistakenly think was already protected from incursion by industry.

It would be wrong to bring a blurred distinction between public and private lands to this issue. Our national forests, and particularly these last, diminishing, and irreplaceable wild areas, should be neither farm nor ranch nor mine. Texas historian T. R. Fehrenbach has noted that for generations of Texans, the land, rather than knowledge, has been viewed as the source of all wealth. While once such a philosophy might have been understandable, and even logical, such a paradigm no longer exists -- not in the drilled-out, water-depleted, overgrazed Lone Star state, nor in the more than half of the nation's national forests that have been previously overlogged and heavily-roaded.

If a private landowner wishes to continue harming his or her land, there's little than can be done to prevent such a selfish path from being taken. But that's not what Theodore Roosevelt, his chief forester, Gifford Pinchot, or the current Forest Service chief, Mike Dombeck, envisioned with regard to public lands.

Nor is it the will of modern society. Much ballyhoo was made during the presidential campaign by Bush about listening to "the American people," and the roadless policy directive is indeed what the public wants. It was years in the making, and is the culmination of years of public outcry, as well as the urgent recommendation of scores of independent scientists. The Forest Service held over 600 public meetings and received over 1.6 million cards and letters on the issue, with overwhelming support voiced in favor of the initiative.

A few of Bush's key supporters from Western government and industry, however, oppose the policy of protecting these last wild areas, although keeping roadless national forest lands intact will in no way "lock them up," as opponents claim. Instead, the initiative will expand recreational possibilities, trim fat timber company subsidies, focus restoration and fuel reduction work in areas closer to towns and cities, and protect threatened, endangered and sensitive species. If allowed to stand, it will also help move the culture of the rural West light years ahead of its old dysfunctional colonial status, beyond the savage and polarized partisan wars, fought at the community level among neighbors, over these last few areas that are clearly sacred to so many Americans.

Seventy-six percent of Americans support the initiative. Numerous editorials in support of the directive have appeared in almost every state and major paper in the Union. It would be foolish and divisive for Bush to consider spending so much time and energy and political capital on an issue so at variance with the will of the people.

And as if the concept of protecting for all time the last of our vanishing wilderness even needs economic justification, we need to remember also that the policy will not affect 98 percent of the timber already cut from national forest lands. Indeed, the Forest Service notes that the lumber tucked away in these last nooks and crannies of the roadless areas represents only 0.5 percent of the nation's annual timber supply.

This is not a states' rights issue, any more than the Civil War was a states' rights issue. These are public lands, to be administered by the U.S. Forest Service, and these last wild untouched places, so quintessentially American, deserve to be preserved for the ages. As president, Bush will have plenty of opportunity to reward his key Western supporters if he feels such quid pro quo is necessary. But there is nothing to be gained by attempting to overturn this bold and visionary policy. Bush needs to support it with the full force of his office, and then take shared and partial credit for the incredibly unifying effect it will have in moving toward healing the West's wounds.

Rick Bass lives in Troy, Montana, and is the author of sixteen books of fiction and nonfiction, including "Winter: Notes from Montana."

Copyright 2001 Oregon Live

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