Playing the percentages

Oregon lags way behind in protecting pristine places: the Oregonian says it's time to stop squabbling and start acting says

California contains some pretty spectacular spots, the kind of places over which it is possible to ooh and aah and then reach a singular conclusion: "I wouldn't change a thing."

This likely explains why Uncle Sam has set aside 14 percent of the state as wilderness.

"Untrammeled by man."

Our neighbors to the north are likewise no slouches in the natural spectacle stakes. More than 10 percent of Washington is federally protected wilderness.

And Oregon?

Our wilderness is stalled at less than 4 percent.

In various configurations -- like square dancers constantly changing partners -- Oregon's congressional delegation has been trying for years to up our score. Bills currently wandering like lost sheep around Capitol Hill include one to add more than 100,000 acres of wilderness on Mount Hood. Another would create the 13,700-acre Copper Salmon Wilderness at the headwaters of the Elk River near Port Orford.

Grabbing the fewest headlines -- but perhaps most significant of all -- is the long-stalled plan to carve 23,000 acres of wilderness from the Cascade-Siskiyou National Monument near Medford. President Clinton created the 53,000-acre monument in 2000 as a first step in protecting this remarkable "biological crossroads" where forests of fir and oak interweave with wildflower meadows grazed by elk, patrolled by cougars, watched over by eagles.

And then there are the cows.

Ranchers have grazed cattle on this land for generations. Now, after years of negotiations, they have agreed to a plan that would compensate them for waiving those grazing leases. Rep. Greg Walden, R-Ore., whose district includes the monument and who has derailed earlier efforts to pass this legislation, says he's still waiting to see exactly how the mechanics of this buyout would work. He wants to make sure, he says, that the ranchers will actually get whatever they are promised.

On Feb. 27, the bill will get another hearing, before the Senate's subcommittee on Public Lands and Forests, chaired by Sen. Ron Wyden. We trust this time the squabbling can cease. Those who marvel at the biodiversity of the Cascade-Siskiyou National Monument refer to the proposed Soda Mountain Wilderness as a "loading dock for Noah's ark." It's time now to pull up that gangplank and let this ship set sail.