Louis Bubala, a local lawyer specializing in bankruptcies, remembers how he started volunteering with Friends of Nevada Wilderness in 2004, a moment which would set his path for countless more hours of helping preserve the region’s ecosystem.
He had first moved to Reno and was looking to engage in outdoor activities. “I left after work on a Friday and I had my five- year-old son with me,” he told Our Town Reno during a recent interview. “And I didn't have a four-wheel drive vehicle and so this was September and it was pitch black by the time we got up to Gerlach and I was up there. So I just kept going, and driving. And eventually I saw some taillights and found the campsite. And we went out and just had a great time with Friends of Nevada Wilderness and BLM (Bureau of Land Management) staffers and I think we were working on the Soldiers Meadows Hot Springs, trying to figure out how to get that area cleaned up and protected.”
Fast forward and Bubala has now been a secretary on the Board of Directors of Friends of Nevada Wilderness for the last seven years. The organization works towards preserving and protecting public lands in Nevada as wilderness and educating people about the need for restoration of such wildlands.
After his initial foray, Bubala kept volunteering and also started donating money for the cause. Friends of Nevada Wilderness, with headquarters in Sparks, has about twelve to fifteen full-time employees and about the same number of seasonal and contractual employees throughout the year. Bubala’s role as a board member is to ensure that they watch their expenditures and become more efficient in their roles.
“So wilderness is an actual defined term by Congress. Wilderness is an official designation of federal public lands that only Congress can approve. And it's the highest level of land protection that you can put on federal lands, so lands that are either managed by Bureau of Land Management, US Forest Service, National Park Service, Fish and Wildlife,” he explained. “And really, it's designed to keep that land in undisturbed condition. So there's a level of solitude, there's a level of protection, it becomes a reservoir for water for animals, for plants. It's not hard to get into those areas. But if you're getting in there, you're doing it on foot. There's no roads, there's no driving into it. There's no bikes that are going into the wilderness. So the impact that people have on those lands is really minimal. And we're working to try to protect that.”
Friends of Nevada Wilderness mostly focus on “advocacy and stewardship,” according to Bubala. This involves interacting with many different types of people.
“We work with local landowners surrounding these areas, because oftentimes there's an interplay with what they do,” he said. “We work with local governments, they often need to know what's going to happen to the tax base, how is land going to be developed or not developed? We work with the Congressional staff and federal agencies, because those are the people that are ultimately managing it. And on the Congressional side, Congressman [Mark] Amodei, Senator [Catherine] Cortez Masto, Senator [Jacky] Rosen, those are the people who get to vote on whether or not we're going to designate lands as wilderness.”
Bubala still also enjoys the role of being a volunteer and “getting out on land.” He says this is the most crucial role for anyone helping out.
“We're working to make sure the public lands that we have that are designated for wilderness or in the surrounding kind of buffer areas, how do we get out there, get our hands dirty, and make sure that those lands continue to be a high quality area for the plants and animals that depend upon them. And it's really rewarding to be out there and see that happen and look at the landscape and realize that you had a hand in keeping it beautiful and gorgeous, and protected.”
Friends of Nevada Wilderness has a signup sheet on their website for volunteers. On the basis of this, crews are prepared to go up to wilderness areas and experience working and spending time with the expert teams (trail crews) that lead these expeditions.
“We have a couple of trail crews that work normally, four to five people on each trail crew and they will go out into the wilderness further out,” Bubala explained. “So those people have actual training, they get training from the Forest Service and other people on these huge broadband saws, where you've got one person on each side of the saw to cut these down, not cut down really, but trees that have fallen across the trail, they can cut them into multiple segments. They will often hike 10 to 15 miles a day to get out to some of these areas that need the tender care that they can provide.”
The website https://www.nevadawilderness.org/ includes many opportunities of how a person can be a part of the organization.
“It's an opportunity to disconnect, to get in contact with the land in getting contact with yourself,” Bubala said, encouraging others to follow in his footsteps. “They are a great group of people and we won’t work you to death because part of the deal is we want you to get out on the land and see it yourself and understand and appreciate how beautiful this state is.”