Thursday, April 28, 2005

The Shawnee War

DownLeft has another great post. It deals with a controversy that I wasn't even aware of but now have a great interest in -Southern Illinois' beautiful Shawnee National Forest. Apparently, it's being used, or over used, to the point where there are now some environmental concerns.

So what we have is the classic fight between those that want to limit or manage usage to preserve the area and those who want to tear the crap out of the place by allowing virtually unlimited access by anyone, anytime to do anything.

One thing I always liked about the wilderness areas of Southern Illinois was that they were relatively underutilized. It was like no one knew it was there 25 year ago when I lived in the area and that was fine by me. So things have changed and now more management of recreation is needed. Although not everyone agrees, therefore the controversy.

DL also has some useful links in the post for those interested in this controversy.

No comments: