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The wise use movement is a loose affiliation of activists inspired by the work of Ron Arnold. In 1988, Arnold, a vice-president of the Center for the Defense of Free Enterprise, helped organize a Multiple Use Strategy Conference in Reno, Nevada that produced a 25-point Wise Use Agenda. The movement's goals are to increase what they see as responsible commercial use of public lands for uses such as timber, mining, and oil, to open recreational wilderness areas for easier access by the general public, and to implement free-market solutions to environmental problems.
Some Wise Use activists refer to their position as free-market environmentalism. Critics of the movement believe that Wise Use is more accurately called anti-environmentalist. Ron Arnold has been quoted as saying his goal is to "destroy the environmental movement." Free-market environmentalism is a term which is also used by some who hold libertarian political views and support protecting the environment through private initiatives such as land trusts; many of them would dispute any association of free-market environmentalism with the Wise Use movement and its goals.
Major organizations promoting wise use ideas include Alliance for America, the American Land Rights Association, the Cato Institute, the Center for the Defense of Free Enterprise, the Heartland Institute, and the Property and Environment Research Center. Several environmental advisors to president George W. Bush have been associated with the wise use movement. These include Terry Anderson and Interior Secretary Gale Norton. Groups which the wise use movement would rather not be associated with, such as the John Birch Society, the Unification Church, and the Lyndon LaRouche organization, have sometimes attempted to hitch themselves to the wise use cause, and hold similar views on environmental issues to the wise users.
Critics such as Carl Deal, author of The Greenpeace Guide to Anti-Environmental Organizations, and Political Research Associates, charge that many wise use organizations give the appearance of being popular grassroots movements, but are actually front organizations for industry groups with a financial interest in the movement's agenda.
Because of the incentives offered by their positions, many conservationists tend to err on the side of being overly cautious of change, while developers and industrial interests can tend to be overly optimistic about environmental effects. The wise use movement, along with most of its detractors, sees the issue as finding a solution which will allow responsible use of the Earth's resources without frustrating responsible and productive development.
External links
- A wise use manifesto (http://www.cdfe.org/wiseuse.htm) written by Ron Arnold
- A critical view of Ron Arnold (http://www.clearproject.org/reports_cdfe.html) and his influence from the Clearinghouse on Environmental Advocacy and Research
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