The guest speaker for this year’s annual meeting is Clark Collins. Mr. Collins is the Executive Director of the Blue Ribbon Coalition. The Blue Ribbon Coalition is a nationwide organization representing over 600,000 motorized recreationists and resource users. Organized in 1987, the BRC has successfully combined the strength of snowmobile, boating, 4X4, hunting equestrian, mountain bike, and off-highway motorcycle community into a potent team.

The BRC land use program works to maintain and expand trails and roads for motorized and equestrian recreation while conserving natural resources. It promotes multiple use and cooperation among users. In its nationally based efforts, BRC is working toward a change in national policy to promote balanced recreation and to improve motorized recreational opportunities.

The Blue Ribbon Coalition motto is "preserve our natural resources FOR the public instead of FROM the public."

The BRC is an active player in working against the roadless initiatives of the Clinton administration. In fact, they are part of a lawsuit filed the first week of January to stop the roadless-forest designation of 60 million acres of U.S. forestland. The 60 million acres represents one-third of all national forest lands.

Last year U.S. District Judge Ed Lodge ruled the Forest Service had not completed the necessary federal draft and environmental studies and could be sued. This ruling led to three snowmobile clubs, a Native American tribe, a cattle company, and a timber company filing the suit. The State of Idaho also joined the suit the second week of January.

The annual business meeting, election of directors, and the presentation of the PLOW scholarships to Skylar Reynolds and Jessica Roberts are also on the agenda for the evening.

The roadless initiatives that Clark Collins will discuss are part of a plan by Wild Earth. In a position paper, "The Wildlands Project," Dave Forman head of Earth First and his associates make the following statements.

" (We want) "vast landscapes without roads, dams, motorized vehicles, powerlines, overflights, or other artifacts of civilization, where evolutionary and ecological processes that represent four billion years of Earth wisdom can continue."

"We seek to develop a system of large wild core reserves where biodiversity and ecological processes dominate. Core reserves would be linked by biological corridors to allow for the natural dispersal of wide-ranging species. Buffers would be established around core reserves and corridors to protect their integrity from disruptive human activities. Only human activity compatible with protection of the core reserves and corridors would be allowed."

"Implementation of such a system will take place over many decades."

All of the roadless initiatives, proposals for more parks, restrictions on private property, and government land purchases are part of this project which many unknowing, well-meaning, sincere people have bought into with out knowing the whole story. As Forman states this will take many decades and just like drops of water—one at a time they aren’t much but put them together and you have the end of civilization as we know it and grizzlies moving from Mexico to Greenland.

After over ten years of annual dues of $10, the PLOW Board voted to raise its annual dues to $15 beginning April 1, 2001. This was a very hard decision. Several factors contributed to the decision. One factor was the request from the Alliance For America that each grassroots organization give $1 per member to the Alliance. Another was the price of postage. It is not so much the postage itself as the amount we must pay when the newsletter cannot be delivered because of an address change. Each returned item now costs us 60 cents. The cost of office supplies such as paper, stamps, and telephone were also a consideration.

PLOW INSTRUMENTAL IN STOPPING BARABOO RANGE NATIONAL NATURAL LANDMARK STATUS -- PLOW President Art Kulosa recently sent the following news release to local media.

"Individual people and land rights organizations took it upon themselves as a public service to inform landowners in the Baraboo Range of the possible dangers of the National Natural Landmark (NNL) status. Only a very few of the approximately 600 landowners in the designated area had any clue that their land was being put into that status unless they happened to see a tiny notice placed in the Baraboo News Republic newspaper. Why it was so quietly announced raised questions as to the possible negative effects on the people who live and own land there.

Through personal letters, visits, conversations, and public hearings those fears were explored and to that end it was suggested that those landowners that wished had the National Park Service (NPS) choice to "opt-out" of NNL status.

PLOW learned through the Freedom Of Information Act that of the approximately 600 landowners in the NNL designated area, 444 or about 74 percent had opted-out. The National Park Service NNL Program Handbook, page 25, states that "a site cannot be designated as an NNL by the Sec. of Interior if the NPS receives, within 60 days, written, notarized responses from a majority of the private property owners involved indicating their objection to having their property designated." This was legally done by the property owns so the NNL designation no longer applies to any of the 50,700 acres involved.

Even though we learned of this many months ago, it was decided not to make a public announcement until the new administration was in place. PLOW wishes to thank everyone involved in bringing about the dissolution of the NNL status."

Each year thousands of landowners and hunters become involved in "gentlemen’s agreements" on the use of private property for hunting small game and deer. Landowners by and large allow hunters on their property with no fees and only ask responsible conduct by the hunters. This brings up the question of what is responsible conduct. Is it responsible to drive through hayfields, leave trash on the property, or leave a tree stand on property after the hunting season ends? What gives a person the right to think that asking to hunt one year gives that right in perpetuity?

A landowner in Sauk County had the following experience.

It was taken down with our permission and placed in a shed.

At approximately 2:00 p.m. on September 23, 2000, when neither our son, my husband nor I were home, a phone message was taken regarding the tree stand. At 4:00 p.m. a Sauk County Police Officer and the alleged tree stand owner were at our farm asking a renter for permission to search the premises for the tree stand. The tree stand was located and removed from our property. At 10:00 p.m. that evening two Sauk County Sheriff’s Officers arrived at our son’s residence and asked if he had taken the tree stand down. He said that he had. The officers then felt that they should read him his Miranda Rights and question him. He asked them to talk to his father who had told him to take the tree stand down.

They then arrived at our home and an over-zealous police officer began badgering us about who we had given permission to hunt and whose tree stand this was. We had always been very liberal with permission and had no idea who the tree stand belonged to. After half an hour of ridiculous questiong the officer decided we might be telling the truth and left.

Not understanding why two officers and two squad cars had to be sent to our home, I obtained a copy of the police report. After receiving and reading a very slanted police report, I became aware that if anyone of us had said we knew whose tree stand it was, we would have been arrested for theft of personal property.

A very power-crazed police officer and a couple of hunters who could have called us personally have left us with only a feeling of disgust.

The message is clear. Property owners cannot depend on a "gentlemen’s agreement" to protect them. The message to hunters is if a landowner is gracious enough to give you permission to hunt the least you can do is be a responsible hunter and take your equipment off the property at the end of the hunting season. Also hunters should not believe that hunting permission for one year is carte blanche for perpetuity.

Kent and Glenda Duell A few years ago at the PLOW annual meeting Glenda and Kent Duell spoke about their problems with the local, county and state governments of New York about an allegedly "bad sewer system" that was discharging pollution into a "river" near their home.

Glenda and Kent lost their home and were sentenced to prison plus fines for this alleged crime. If you recall, the investigations of the local police, the trial, and government agencies involved, all seemed to have an agenda that did not follow the constitutional precept of "innocent until proven guilty."

Glenda called a few weeks ago to let us know what was happening in their struggle to prove that their sewer system was not polluting anything and that this was a ploy to get their property for a village park.

Well, Glenda went to jail and that is when things started to turn around. An anonymous person (a very wealthy anonymous person) was told by his financial advisors to find some worthy causes to support; and, believe or not, the Duell situation was one of the causes he choose.

This gentleman has hired a first-rate lawyer to handle their appeal. He has spent $10,000 alone on getting a transcript of the trial. He helped the Duells keep possession of some rural property where they now live.

Another side effect of Glenda’s imprisonment was that neighbors and acquaintances who basically were not very supportive of their plight have now started to realize that perhaps the Duell’s were set up by various local, county, and state officials.

The Duell’s are hopeful that very soon their appeal will be heard and that this whole nightmare will be over. Glenda wanted the PLOW members who were so supportive of their situation to know that while the ordeal is not over yet the chances of a positive outcome are better than they have ever been.

High water mark—Public access legislation repeal As of today (January 23) Rep. Johnsrud’s office is not sure what the next step in this situation will be. Rep. Johnsrud asked Gov. Thompson to include the repeal of this law in the next budget but did not get a specific yes or no. With Gov. Thompson’s resignation, Duane’s office is not sure who will actually be writing the new budget. As a result, this item is in a "wait and see" phase.

Rep. Johnsrud’s aide did tell me that if repeal of this law is not in the budget other steps will be taken to repeal it. Watch your state and local newspapers, listen to the radio, and keep posted on this important item. PLOW members and the members of other land rights organizations will need to be ready to send letters, make phone calls, and testify when this item comes before the state legislature.

Mt. Hope Trout Pond At this time we have not heard any thing regarding the Trout Pond or the establishment of an alternative site.

DNR Land Grabs Continue The Country Today of Dec. 2000 carried a full-page article on another proposed DNR land grab. The DNR has submitted a feasibility study for a 21,369-acre project in parts of Ozaukee, Sheboygan, and Washington counties. The area consists of river and stream corridors, wetlands, lakes, and about 11,000 acres of agricultural land. The DNR wants to acquire land as a buffer along the North Branch of Milwaukee River and five tributary streams.The study also suggests that at least 100 feet of land on either side of the stream(s) should be acquired.

The DNR rationale for this action is that state ownership would open up miles of river to anglers, canoeists, hikers, and wildlife watchers in an area where public access is limited.

As local landowners became aware of the plan, they began a petition drive to stop the action. Many landowners were irate at the DNR and were very outspoken in their comments. Statements such as "Stop this evil," (there is) "enough state-owned land, private property should remain," "DNR keep out," "leave private property alone," "Quit wasting our money." One landowner said when talking about stewardship of the land, "Hello, Farmers are the stewards of the land."

Business people and landowners whose property is not part of the DNR study are concerned about what will happen to the tax base, businesses, and the schools. Evelyn Rathke, Freedonia, who with her husband raises registered Angus cattle says "This sounds like a great playground for the nearby urban area at the expense of current landowners to me, and all the taxpayers will pay and pay and pay. The state already owns a great percentage of Wisconsin land. They are taking taxpayers’ money to purchase it, the taxpayer money to maintain it, and the taxpayer will pay more taxes because this land is taken off the tax rolls"

The "green" movement has made preservation of forests a major item in their campaign to lock up America. Yet these same "greens" don’t seem to realize that trees are our only renewable resource and selective cutting will provide us with healthy forests and the wood products which we literally can’t live without. If we embrace the green philosophy, our lifestyles would have to change and change quite drastically.

The Community Forum (Jan/Feb 2001) had these interesting comments on forests. After talking about wood uses in the nineteenth and early twentieth century the article goes on as follows:

"Global Doomsayers: Over-Eager & Warmed Over" from the Community Form Jan/Feb 2001.