By Bill Cunningham

The times they are a-changing. I'm getting older so I'm allowed to say that.

Back in the Pleistocene, when I worked for several Montana-based wilderness groups, Montanans worked closely with our congressional delegation to protect some of our most pristine lands as Wilderness. Great things were accomplished, including our nation's first citizen-initiated wilderness, the Scapegoat in 1972, and Montana's most recent contribution to our nation's Wilderness System, the Lee Metcalf in 1983. But in those days critics accused us of being fixated on wilderness with a myopic view of what might happen outside the "green line."

Regardless of whether that criticism is valid it's interesting to contrast then with now.

Nowhere are these changes better exemplified than the new phenomenon of folks from all walks of life coming together to find common ground to manage their public ground. Examples abound in Montana, one of the best ones being the Rocky Mountain Front Heritage Act proposed by the Coalition to Protect the Rocky Mountain Front.

By no stretch of the imagination is this proposal a wilderness bill. Of the 400,000 acres of roadless public land on the Front only 67,160 acres would be joined to the Bob Marshall and Scapegoat wildernesses in five modest additions.

Rather, the heart of the heritage plan is a more custom-tailored landscape approach that goes way beyond what could ever be accomplished with wilderness alone. And the community-based collaboration during these past five years is the engine that has driven this vision. I'm proud to say that my wife and I have been part of this process in concert with many friends and neighbors along the Front, along with some who aren't so friendly. But we've been united by a common vision: to keep the Front as it is for our kids and grandkids to enjoy into the future.

Indeed, collaboration does bring together strange bedfellows but the whole idea is to break out of our comfort zone and widen the circle as much as possible without compromising the widely accepted goal of keeping the Front as it is. The Heritage Act will achieve this with a non-wilderness conservation management area designation for a majority of the public lands along the Front, some 208,112 acres. In so doing, the CMA complements modest wilderness additions and new efforts to prioritize and control swiftly advancing noxious weeds.

A closer look at the proposed CMA designation for the Front reveals that it will keep roadless land roadless while still ensuring the reasonable motorized access at the levels found today. All other existing uses from livestock grazing to wood cutting to hunting and fishing will continue with even greater certainty than we currently have. But, still, the CMA isn't wilderness nor is it intended to be. By giving the land management agencies more flexibility than is possible or desirable in wilderness the CMA is uniquely customized to fit the Front.

Although new to the Rocky Mountain Front, customized non-wilderness management of wildlands legislated by Congress has been around for a long time. Our best example in Montana is the Rattlesnake Wilderness and National Recreation Area enacted in 1980 for Missoula's northern doorstep. It was my privilege to work with Rep. Pat Williams and many Missoulians to help implement this special blend of Wilderness for the higher more remote reaches of the Rattlesnake and national recreation area for the front country that allows for a greater range of activities than would be appropriate in wilderness.

This community-based approach has worked well in Missoula for more than a generation and it will work well for communities along the Front. Local folks across the political spectrum have worked hard to produce a fair and balanced proposal that respects working ranches along with meaningful long-lasting protection of the wildest and least developed stretch of the mountain Front between Canada and Mexico. The proposed Rocky Mountain Front Heritage Act exemplifies these time-honored traditions.

Bill Cunningham of Choteau has been guiding hiking and backpacking trips in the Bob Marshall Wilderness Complex and Rocky Mountain Front for more than 30 years.