THE ROCKING CHAIR SYNDROME

Last May, President Clinton proposed a ban on
road building on 43 million acres of national forest land that will ban
commercial logging in all roadless areas, with an exception for stewardship
logging - defined by the Forest Service as logging for the purpose of improving habitat, reducing the risk of uncharacteristic wildfires, or ecological restoration. This roadless ban will also deny hunters, fishermen, and trappers traditional access to these areas which in essence disguises the creation of another Federal
wilderness park. On November 13, 2000, the Sierra Club gloatingly
announced through a press release that Mr. Clinton's proposal will
soon become a reality.

While the handwriting on the wall continues to scroll and etching its
unerasable message, the complacent, apathetic sportsmen continue to sleep.
Worse than that, his naiveté' and belief that all is good, will soon do him
in. While he slumbers and fails to hear the horn of doom crying out that his
sports of hunting, fishing and trapping are tenuous at best, the "greens" and
their pals are at work diligently using their skills of infiltration into the
bowels of the Federal government. No, the "greens" aren't making a direct
effort to take your guns away; they are doing something far more reaching.
They are taking your land away so that you can only see it from the loftiest
places on the planet. Shamefully, it seems, you the sportsmen are not willing
to dig your heels in the turf and rebut the efforts that continue to deny you
access to your lands and waters. More shamefully, your naiveté and ignorance
has conditioned you and other Maine sportsmen to believe that conservation
easements are an alternative to the "green" efforts to establish a Federal
park. I doubt the "Rip Van Winkle" sportsmen will wake up in time to save
themselves. You can be sure when it's all said and done that the bureaucratic
diseases that always see a need to regulate everything, including your lives,
will see a need to regulate the land purchased by conservation easements. And
you can bet the pleasure derived from using the lands will not be equal to
the pain of regulation imposed upon you by the regulators. Perhaps not in my
lifetime, but certainly in the lifetime of you younger sportsmen, the
"greens" will have succeeded joined arm in arm, with their anti-hunting pals.
So to all of you naive and complacent sportsmen who aren't smart enough to
see that the secret to the continuation of your outdoor endeavors is access
to your lands and waters, I advise you to buy a rocking chair and get used to
setting in it. Then at least you'll have creature comforts when you read my
book about how it used to be when we could freely roam Maine's forest lands
without seeing a gate manned and supported by a "den of thieves" who sold
themselves out to the "greens" for seven pieces of gold.

BY Bill Randall