Making Sense of Malheur Reflections from Inside the Oregon Occupation by Hal Herring March 21, 2016 | $5 | Vol
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CALIFORNIA DROUGHT’S SILVER LINING | NEVADA (POLITICAL) TEST SITE | ALASKAN CARIBOU HUNT High Country ForN people whoews care about the West Making Sense of Malheur Reflections from inside the Oregon occupation By Hal Herring March 21, 2016 | $5 | Vol. 48 No. 5 | www.hcn.org 48 No. | $5 Vol. 2016 March 21, CONTENTS Editor’s note Snapshot of a sad moment When a band of militants took over the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge in Oregon this winter, we at High Country News worked hard to understand not only what was happening day by day, but also why it was happening. What did Ammon Bundy and his supporters actually want? We’re still trying to figure it out. Certainly, the occupation meant something. And while it’s easy to cast the Bundyites as foolish malcontents, as many in the media have done, there’s more to it than that. The Malheur occupation generated so much interest, I think, because it strikes at core questions at work in the American West today — questions about liberty and power and control. Over the last eight years, since the election of President Barack Obama, the extreme right has steadily sown discord throughout our democracy. This has created paralysis in the federal government, Rosella Talbot drapes an American flag over the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge sign on Jan. 2, the day armed militants occupied the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service buildings. BROOKE WARREN mistrust among the electorate and a general erosion Audio of civility. In many ways, the Malheur occupation is a FEATURE product of this campaign, which has also encouraged the rise of Donald Trump. Both the occupation and “Sheriffs are the ultimate 12 Making Sense of Malheur Trump’s candidacy rely on the anxieties of middle- law enforcement authority. On the cover Reflections from inside the Oregon occupation By Hal Herring and lower-class white Americans, and I’ve found it hard lately to think of one without the other. Duane Ehmer carries Because they are elected an American flag as CURRENTS A recent analysis by the Washington Post shows that in Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia, Oklahoma, officials, they have more he rides his horse, 5 Hellboy, at the Why Nevada matters for the rest of the election Tennessee, Texas, Virginia and Vermont, Trump won power than anybody in Malheur National Early caucuses highlighted Western issues, but the state will play proportionately more votes in the places where Wildlife Refuge near an even bigger role in November the death rate of middle-aged whites was higher their county, including Burns, Oregon, in 7 mid-January. Ehmer ‘A smart way’ for species? A study refutes claims that the Endangered than average. The rural West shares many of those the president of the was among the armed Species Act squelches development, but the devil is in the details states’ characteristics, but there is one distinction: occupiers of the 7 The Latest: WIPP radiation leak Life in the West is, in large part, an experiment in United States.” refuge. JOE RAEDLE/ cooperation. Out here, we have learned to work —Richard Mack’s philosophy, as GETTY IMAGES 8 The caribou hunter of Arctic Village Photo essay together to make use of our resources, including our explained by HCN senior editor 10 Jonathan Thompson in “West Obsessed: California drought brings opportunity Dry spell provides relief public lands, through a democratic, bureaucratic What the heck is a Sagebrush Sheriff?” for communities with contaminated drinking water process that is as messy as it is necessary. That Mack is founder of the Constitutional 10 The Latest: Hells Canyon bighorn sheep cooperation was lost on the occupiers. Sheriff and Peace Officers Association, Still, I don’t think ridiculing them will help. and author of the book The County Sheriff: America’s Last Hope. DEPARTMENTS We should seek to understand them, as Montana writer Hal Herring does in this issue’s cover essay. MORE: hcne.ws/wo-sagebrushsheriff 3 HCN.ORG NEWS IN BRIEF Both sympathetic and skeptical, Herring embedded Complete access himself in the occupation and had lengthy to subscriber-only 4 LETTERS discussions with the people who found themselves, content 11 THE HCN COMMUNITY Research Fund, Dear Friends imperiled and at times bewildered, under Bundy’s HCN’s website hcn.org 20 MARKETPLACE banner. Herring’s sharp eye and honest writing provide an indelible snapshot of a sad moment in Digital edition 23 WRITERS ON THE RANGE Western history. hcne.ws/digi-4805 Biking in wilderness? Ain’t gonna happen. By Tim Lydon Tablet and mobile apps The occupation is over, with 25 men and hcne.ws/HCNmobile-app 26 BOOKS women arrested, one man killed, and Bundy and his The Skull of Pancho Villa and Other Stories by Manuel Ramos. inner circle facing felony charges. But this won’t be Reviewed by Michelle Newby Lancaster the end of the story, I suspect. We are left now to Follow us Missoula: Rape and the Justice System in a College Town by Jon Krakauer. learn from it what we can. A good place to start is Reviewed by Annie Dawid Herring’s essay, which comes as close as anything I’ve read to an insider’s view of the occupation — 27 ESSAY Seeds in a sandstorm By Natasha Vizcarra the latest sign of our troubled times. @highcountrynews 28 HEARD AROUND THE WEST By Betsy Marston —Brian Calvert, managing editor 2 High Country News March 21, 2016 FROM OUR WEBSI TE: HCN.ORG Clean Power stay Trending spurs green action Think-tank Environmentalists started the year on a high, influence after the Obama administration took action on coal leasing on public lands, Keystone In early March, XL and carbon emissions. Then last month, an Idaho Senate the Supreme Court delivered the movement panel passed a bill an unexpected defeat by staying the Clean that would help Power Plan. The 5-to-4 decision showed lay the groundwork environmentalists just how fragile their for more local victories are – and re-energized their efforts control of federal to influence the coming elections and the lands. The bill was search for a replacement for Supreme Court based on model Justice Antonin Scalia. Green groups, like the legislation written League of Conservation Voters, received an by the American influx of donations following the stay. The Legislative Exchange Democratic National Committee released a Council (ALEC), a video with members of Congress, most from conservative think Western states, talking about the toll climate tank whose Western change will take on their states, a signal of influence has the larger role environmental issues play in grown. The group this election than in the past. On the line has played a role in are the hard-won policies of the Obama public-lands debates administration, not least of them the Clean as far back as the A man wears a Bernie Sanders mask during a November rally in Los Angeles calling for action on Power Plan. ELIZABETH SHOGREN 1995 “Sagebrush Rebellion Act.” climate change, just before climate talks in Paris. The Supreme Court’s stay of the Clean Power Plan MORE: hcne.ws/CPPenviros last month has re-energized environmental groups’ efforts to raise the issue’s profile. During the first MARK RALSTON/AFP/GETTY IMAGES half of last year, a third of the public land transfer bills introduced in the Audio West could be LAND COVER traced back to ALEC, circa 1990 and more have “Sheriffs are the ultimate appeared already this year. law enforcement authority. LYNDSEY GILPIN Because they are elected You say officials, they have more JE N NAY “Public-lands policy power than anybody in coming from a place their county, including LAND COVER with negligible Pre-1900s public lands. Makes the president of the sense.” DISAPPEARANCE OF United States.” Land cover CENTRAL VALLEY WET- AMY BRUNVAND Aquatic LANDS. CENTRAL VAL- “ ‘Local control’ —Richard Mack’s philosophy, as Wetland LEY HISTORIC MAPPING PROJECT, CALIFORNIA is always the explained by HCN senior editor Riparian Other floodplain habitat STATE UNIVERSITY, buzzword, but most Jonathan Thompson in “West Obsessed: CHICO, GEOGRAPHIC Grassland INFORMATION CENTER of the locals are not What the heck is a Sagebrush Sheriff?” actually in favor Mack is founder of the Constitutional they crowd together on diminishing wet areas, of handing our Sheriff and Peace Officers Association, Shrinking wetlands diseases spread, further weakening populations. quality of life over and author of the book The County In the last century, California wetlands have Conservationists and farmers have tried to slow to corporate and Sheriff: America’s Last Hope. decreased by 90 percent. That trend has continued over the past five years of drought. Birds that once the slide, but dwindling water allocations have private interests.” MORE: hcne.ws/wo-sagebrushsheriff nested in the wetlands are finding their habitual hindered their efforts. PAIGE BLANKENBUEHLER spots dried out, leading to reduced breeding. As MORE: hcne.ws/CAwetlands MICHAEL STIEHL “Why is this a surprise? What baffles me, Timeline General Land though, is why 1,000 Office surveyors the conservation Roughly the number Grazing rights over time in Oregon, circa and wilderness of Yellowstone bison 1923. The GLO, organizations don’t killed in this year’s Battles over who should be able to called by some use similar tactics controversial cull. Biolo- graze livestock on the vast stretches the “Gateway to by introducing their gists say development of federal land in Western states Land Ownership,” draft legislation.” has ended the animal’s have raged for over 150 years. because it historical migrations; Central to these disputes is whether MORE: hcne.ws/ facilitated land-transfer and without management, grazing is a “right.” Federal laws treat settlement, later bison could overcrowd grazing on public land as a privilege, Facebook.com/ merged with highcountrynews the park.