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, 2-Htgb Country News - September 11, 1989 ,

An intern's life is sad and grey Lots of work with little say Congratulations But we're doing it for the cause Resume padding for our next The staff of High Country News boss ... congratulates past staff member Hannah Perhaps the writing of poetry is not Hinchman, of Dubois, Wyo., on her among the skills interns pick up in the receipt of the Neltje Blanchan and the front room. FranK Nelson Doubleday memorial awards. Knock, knock Normally, the awards would go to two people. But the Wyoming Council The gap caused by the lack of on the Arts newsletter said: "Because of interns was partially made up by visitors. the extraordinary quality of a manuscript Gene and Margo Lorig of Eagle, Colo., submiued" 10both competitions, Hannah came through. They are long-time fight- received both the $2;(lOO cash prize and ers against the Adams Rib ski area, pro- will be honored at the Council's Art- posed for a mountain outside Eagle. speak conference in Laramie on Sept. 29 Another mountain couple, Karen and and 30. George Chapman, who publish the Si1- HannahHlnchman The competitions' judge, Patricia verton Standard, came through with Goedicke, a Missoula poet and teacher, restaurant owner Fritze Klinke. The Recycling said of Hannah's non-fiction 'piece, three were in Paonia to attend a meeting From the Nameless Places, that it "con- on economic development organized by . In addition to in-the-flesh visitors, stantly nudges us from near to far, from John Hess of the Northwest Colorado the mailman knocks. BLM river ranger the intimale to the infinite." Council of Governments. The speakers Skip Edwards subscribed to HCN by HCN readers will be able to judge included Michael Kinsley of the Rocky converting a bunch of aluminum cans Hannah's talents for themselves: a remi- Mountain Institute and Phil Burgess, into a subscription. Skip said rafters con- niscent piece about her years at High head of the Center for the New West in tribute the cans 10the station, which then Country News accompanied by her Denver, a new regional think tank. uses them for needed but unbudgeted drawings will be 'part of our twentieth Staff is used to seeing its far-flung items. anniversary issue, to be published this board only three times a year, but board Loyd Clark of McCook, Neb., sent month. HIGH COUNTRY NEWS (lSSN/01911S657) Is member Michael Ehlers, spouse Tracy in his renewal check with a question: pubUshed biweekly, except for one iuue during July and one luue during January, by the High Welcome, students Ehlers and friend Connie Fisher stopped "What about a plains discount? You Country Foundation, 124 Grand Avenue, Paonia, by to say hello. The three were on their don't carry a lot of news about the Colorado 81428. Second·dan postage paid at Paonia, Colorado. way to the Labor Day film festival at prairie. Don't forget we are over one- It took only one telephone call to POSTMASTER: send address changes to HIGH Telluride. half mile high." The idea had appeal COUNTRY NEWS, Box 1090. Paonia, CO 81428. increase HCN's subscriber' rolls by 87. Doug Reynolds and Debbie Ban- until we began thinking about the several . The call came from University of Col- Tom Bell drosky stopped in on their way from the thousand readers who live in California, Editor EnuwUus orado Professor Spenser Havlick. He University of Montana's Flathead Lake New York, Chicago, et al - places that Ed Marston enrolled two courses - one on environ- Biological Station to Fairplay, Colo. get even less coverage in High Country Publtsber mental impact analysis and the other on Doug is on a year's sabbatical from News than the prairie stales. Betsy Marston resource management issues for archi- teaching biology at Eastern Kentucky To say nothing of Singapore, where Editor tects and planners - in High Country University. Debbie is a wilderness subscriber Vicki Collins lives: "You've Pe ier- caneJs News. Bruce Farling ranger. They agreed that Colorado is dif- been my main contact with U.S. environ- If you teach, and think your stul!ents Gco..ae Hardeen ferent from Montana and Washington, mental.Issues -during-my stay, in-Singa- Pal Fo .... would profit from the paper, we will be Jim StJak and the difference is not good; Colorado pore. I'm returning now.and-don't.feelas glad to mail the paper to you for distii~ Regio-J Bunmu.s has more jeep trails and suburban homes out of touch as I might have without bution to the class for $6 per student per \ CoL Rawlins on the edges of wilderness areas. your publication." semester, If you would like to distribute Poetry Editor Two lawyers and one potential only a single issue of the paper to a sieve Hinchman 1 lawyer wheeled by the office as part of a A summer freshet Resean::b/Reporll.g class, we'll send you a bundle gratis. We three-week-long bike trip. Both Reid also have a new introductory rate of $18 Unda BacIgalupi Zars and John Huss, the lawyers, are for- Finally, a word about finances. Usu- DcveIoPm.exl per year for first-time subscribers who mer staff members of Wyoming's Pow- ally, summer is a low cash-flow lime, are students. C.B. Elliott der River Basin Resource Council, a with the paper reaching toward the annu- Ci~lali.off/Prodllalo. Spense had word for us about a for- coalition of ranchers and environmental- al fall Research Fund drive in parched mer HCN intern - his son David, who Peggy Robin, Ann U1rlch ists formed in the 1970s to protect the condition. We are a little less parched Typesen".g is now an asssociate editor of Walking region from coal mining. Reid now this year thanks to three large summer magazine, a Boston publication with a Oaire Moore-Murrill works for the Environmental Protection contributions, totalling $10,000. Two BNSlrteu half million subscribers. David's next Division of the Massachusetts attorney were anonymous, with the third from story describes his test of 100 or so general. John is with the Casper law firm Patagonia Inc., the outdoor company that walking shoes - he is the Imelda Mar- of Brown and Drew. The third member tithes to environmental groups. Jane McGarry cos of the outdoor crowd. of wheeled trio, Megan Hayes, starts law Nancy 110m In addition to the contribution, the school in the fall at Boston's Northeast- Proofre·di,.gI~uaiofr Doggerel at HeN finn's public relations director, Kevin Rkban:l Hicks ern University. Sweeney, sent along his "The Media I.."".., After-hours visitors were Gerald Director: Patagonia's Guide for Environ- It is lonely at the moment in the Tom Bell. L.ruIer WY Jacob, a policy analyst for the Western mental.Groups, "intended to help groups Lynn Dickey, SberUla. WY High Country News office. It is not just Interstate Energy Board' in Denver, and use the media better, Sweeney has put an John Driscoll, HeleNa MT that summer is dying here; it is that two Michael Ehlers, Sou"" CO Kathy Butz, who works for an environ- old question in a new form: "If a tree Jeff Fereday, BoUe ID of three of the summer interns are gone, Tom Frana; Mis;,o_ MT mental consulting finn in Denver. They falls in the forest and it isn't on the 6:00 with the third, Richard Hicks, about to Karil Frohboese, PIIrII CJty iff hiked the nearby Black Canyon and News, did it actually fall?" To get the Sally Gordon,Ktilyt»e WY go. MaU Klingle has returned 10college Bill Hedden, MOl''' lIT hauled some local vegetables and fruit to brochure, and perhaps 10geton the 6:00 Dan luecke. Boulder ro at Berkeley and Don Mitchell to CU law , . Boulder. News, write Kevin Sweeney, Patagonia, Adam Mclane, Hele.. MT school. Lynda s. Taylor, Alb~ NM Lauren Wolfe, who, with her hus- Inc., P.O. Box ISO, Ventura,CA 93002. Herman Wanh. ErtdlJ"'ffI MT Technically, the paper is here to' . band Doug and two children, constitutes Andy Wiessner, nre.n.-CO inform -readers. But sometimes staff Robert Wiglnglon,BoNl4er CO a good share of the 50 residents of -Ed Marstonfor the slaff Susan A. Williams, PIJoeItb; AZ thinks its mission to to have an intern Ophir, Colo., came by to say hello. She 1kNwwI of ~recIor"s plOgram. It is·in many ways our most teaches in the town of Telluride. ArtIcles appearinK in fflgh 0..,.",. NftIJ$ are rewarding activity. Evidence of the effect Howard Owens, a San Diego jour- indexed in ~ PerioIBca,. BlbMogrw- of the program on this hatch of interns pby, Environmental Studies InsUtute. 2074 nalist who would like to be a Rocky Alameda Padre serra. Sanla Barbara, California came ina diuy they left behind. Here's Mountain journalist, stopped by on his 93103. _ an excerpt from "Paonia Days," sung to AU rights 10 JM1blkalion of ankles In thl. Issue way home flOm a vacation-job-scouting are reserved. Write for permission to print any the tune of "Green Acres": articles 01" HlustraUons. Contributions trip. (manuscripts, photos, artwork) will be welcomed Paaaaonia is the place to be Kelly Green drove over from nearby with the understanding that the editors cannot Spartan living is just right for me be held responsible ror lou or damage. Enclose a Crested Buue to tell us about an organi- Clipping papers is lots 0' fun §elf·addressed stamped envelope with all URSO- zation she is attempting to create. We Hefted submissions to ensure return. Ankles and BeUer than lounging in the noon- letten will be published and edited at the dlscre· think of it as a legal aid society for envi- day sun don oCthe editors. . ronmentalists. The Land and Water Fund Advertislna Information Is available upon request. To have a 5amp~ copy senuo a friend. of the Rockies would act as advisor and send us his 01" her address. Write to Box 1090, Religious folks here abound attorney to environmental groups in the Paonia, Colorado 81428. call Hlgb Co.,,,,?' News On every corner a church is found tn Colorado at 3031527-4898. region. Kelly, an experienced environ- SUbscriptions are $24 pel" year fOr fndivldual'l Entertainment" is a scarcity and JM1bUclibraries, $J1 pel" year for Institutions. mental litigalOr, can be reached at 1405 So the teens practice insohriety I Single copies $1.00 plus postage and handUng. Arapahoe, Boulder, GO 80303. Special Issues $3 each. I .-

BLMcritics keep trying New Mexico forest takes long-term view Rep. Mike Synar, D-Okla., won't let John Bedell, supervisor of the Car- up on the Bureau of Land Management. son National Forest in northern New whiCh he calls "the worst-run agency in Mexico, is no stranger to controversy. this government ... rampant with incom- Anti-development activists nail petent administration." He supported a signs to the trees around Taos Ski Valley bill, .introduced by Rep. Bruce Vento, D- decrying the pollution and cultural Minn., and since passed in the House, change introduced by the tourism indus- that requires the BLM to place more try. Opponents of logging show up for emphasis on the maintenance of wildlife hearings by the dozens in northern New habitat and protection of riparian areas. Mexico, demanding new safeguards for But Western Republicans are not in wildlife and firewood supplies, and Synar's comer. Rep. Ron Marlenee, R- shouting down foresters who offer Mont., accused Synar of slandering "the reassurance. good public servants that we have" in The forest supervisor holds regular the BLM, insisting that the BLM lands meetings in his office with several have never been in better condition. "We detractors at a time. He candidly admits should not put a straitjacket on an his agency's shortcomings and defends agency that has performed so well," . its strengths. Marlenee said. H.R. 828 would also This time, Bedell has bitten off his expand the definition of Areas of Critical largest mouthful ever. Environmental Concern to include buffer The Carson National Forest spon- zones around national parks and wilder- sored a four-day conference Aug. 13-16 ness areas; make agency forest managers in Taos and surrounding forests billed as responsible for reforestation and scientif- an opportunity to "Get Together With . ic research in addition to timber produc- Your Ancient Forest." It was designed, tion; institute stiff penalties for-violating Bedell said, to create a model for a forest BLM regulations; and require all BLM that can stay healthy and productive managers under the director to be career while being put to use as a source of professionals rather' than political recreation upportunities, wildlife and appointees. Prospects for the reform leg- timber .. islation in the Senate are not optimistic. In reality, the conference may help No companion legislation has been set a new agenda for forest management introduced and no Senate champion has in the Carson. emerged, says Lawson Legate, the Sierra "I see us going in a: totally new Club's Southwest representative. direction," Bedell said. According to the Uranium mine close to supervisor, the sustained-yield principle that has governed logging for decades is closing outdated. Instead, future forest plans will Unless the owners of the largest ura- try to create a "sustainable forest" Chris Maser nium mine in North America find a buy- Biologist and writer Chris Maser er or partner, the mine in New Mexico said, "It's the most open demonstration I that asked questions about forest man- a cupful of water out of it. Then be took will close on Oct. IS, and at least 180 have ever seen between the. public and a agement. a canteen and poured water on the wood, jobs will be lost Conditions in the inter- government agency,": . , Maser said the local conference is alldwing it to Soak it up. . national uranium market make the clo- The conference was inspired largely pan of a "grassroots movement" among Ecology professor Stan Gregory of sure of the Mount Taylor Mine near \ by the work of Maser, a longtime forest managers around the country to Oregon State University pointed out that Grants, N.M., necessary, says Chevron researcher who was described at the con- change philosophies of forestry, Forest there are some short-term economic Resources President Bob Daniel. ference as a "prophet." Maser wrote The managers are trying to convince the pub- advantages to preserving primeval "Unfortunately, Mount Taylor has com- Re-designed Forest, a chronicle describ- lic and the timber companies that man- forests as recreation resources. "People paratively high maintenance and power ing the destruction of forest soils and the agement practices must change to create are demanding a high-quality natural costs because of its depth and water vol- gradual extinction of productive forests sustainable forests, so that those citizens environment," he said, Forests can't be ume," he says. Mount Taylor 'pays due to heavy logging. will endorse new forest management managed in isolated "plots:' he contin- roughly $6.9 million in wages and $1 It is Maser's contention that no for- plans. ued. Instead, entire watersheds and view- million in state taxes each year, reports est being logged anywhere in the world If we allow forests to be exhausted, sheds must be managed together to pre- the Albuquerque Journal. "It's a tough can survive more than three generations. Maser said, the timber companies "are serve the overall biological and aesthetic blow," says Darrel Roberts of the For coniferous species, a generation on a collision course with bankruptcy." quality of the forest Greater Grants Industrial Development spans about 80 years. As an ecologist, he predicts the New Mexico Game and Fish officer Foundation. "You're talking about 180 In western Europe and Scandinavia, same fate for commercial fishermen and Todd Stevenson said his eyes were of the highest paying jobs here ... It's the where tree plantations are over 200 years farmers who are not limiting their har- opened to how the health of the forest loss of an industry." Uranium mining old, trees have almost stopped growing. vests enough to preserve ecological bal- system affects game animals. jobs in Grants stand at about 300, a Normally replenished by rotting logs.the ance. We are practicing "the economics "I've. become aware, that it's all even decrease from 4,700 in the late 1970s. soil has simply worn out, he said. In the of extinction," he warned .. more Interrelated than I thought:' he words of National Audubon Society's We are discovering, Maser asserted, said. New Mexico representative David Hen- that healthy forests are critical to our A 12-year veteran of public wildlife BAPtBS derson, "They've hit the wall:" supplies of clean water and air. Growing management, Stevenson was not con- The Ute Indians are going to be trees create much of the oxygen we vinced that practices will change Bedell said he is determined to keep very lonely. the Carson National Forest from breathe, and healthy forest soils filter quickly. The Colorado Natives Club is in that fate, even though it means scaling impurities from the water and prevent "You won't see it immediately danger of disappearing, as long-time back plans for logging, and even if it silt from clogging our streams and darns. tomorrow," he said. "But we're on the members die and younger native-born means decreasing the amount of fire- right track." In a decade, he said, "Trees won't Coloradans fail to join. wood northern New Mexicans can cut. be the endangered commodity; water -s-Bryan Welch "We've got to change," he said. will." The colorful Southwest reaches out a civilizing arm to mainstream America. The conference was organized by a On a field trip he illustrated his The writer works at The Taos News The "Santa Fe style" is bringing bil- coalition including Indian leaders, Taos point by taking a handful of rotting wood in Taos, New Mexico, where he is man- residents, environmentalists and loggers. from the inside of a stump and squeezing aging editor. lions of dollars to New Mexico from Rancher Luis Torres, who is also a board ., tourists enchanted by bleached cow member of the Southwest Research skulls and other rustic items. Information Center, spoke of the psycho- logical aspect of the conference. "We're HOTLINE report on agreement verification by mid- Colo., run from $100 billion to $200 bil- recognizing ourselves as part of the envi- 1990, reports the New York Times. lion (HeN, 7/31/89). The Bush adminis- ronment rather than a master of it," he A plan for peace "Congress, by an overwhelming majori- tration and many influential members of said. "The forest is embodied in the ty, wants a plutonium cutoff to be an Congress oppose the bill, however. "This mind and -spirits of its people and the Reviving an idea first proposed by important arms control priority," said agreement would force the president to needs of traditional users is very President Eisenhower, the House recent- Rep. Ron Wyden, D-Oregon. The notion negotiate an agreement from a position important." ly passed a ~i11urging a bilateral agree- resurfaced after mismanagement and of weakness," said Kathleen C. Bailey of Non-professional participants in the ment to halt production of plutonium and waste storage problems crippled the U.S. the U.S. Anns Control and Disarmament conference, who numbered about half highly enriched uranium in the United nuclear weapons industry. Cost estimates Agency, A Senate version of the mea- the 400 people that attended, were asked States and Soviet Union. The bill for cleaning up and rebuildng U.S. bomb sure is sponsored by Tim Wirth, 0- to express their views through a survey requires the administration to prepare a plants, such as Rocky Flats near Denver, Colo., and Edward Kennedy, D-Mass. T

4·Htgb Country News September 11, 1989 Proposed resort sets off fight in a rural Idaho valley

The dramatic crest of the Teton. complete a full environmental impact Range does more than divide two water- statement on the resort expansion before sheds, and separate Grand Teton Nation- the land is exchanged. al Park from the Jedediah Smith Wilder- The agency said an environmental ness. assessment on the land exchange itself The range also' separates two very was adequate. It did not address potential different areas: Wyoming's Jackson effectf of the planned development on Hole; with the booming reson town of wildlife and recreation in the nearby Jackson and world-class ski slopes, and Jedediah Smith Wilderness, and the Idaho's Teton Valley, with scattered effects of the development on the rural, ranches, and small towns, like Victor and agriculturaJ ways of the Teton Valley. Driggs. But the differences may lessen if a When the Forest Service announced proposed land exchange gives a Teton the environmental assessment's finding Valley developer title to 270 acres of of "no significant impact" for the land Forest Service land at the base of his exchange in March, crv appealed the Grand Targhee Ski Resort The ski area decision. The Forest Service refused to overlooks Teton Valley, most of which is consider the appeal, saying it could not in Idaho. And the only access to the review a congressionally mandated land reson is through Idaho. swap. CTV then filed suit to require the The land exchange would let resort agency to consider its appeal. owner Mory Bergmeyer expand Targhee. In July, the Federal District Court in Bergmeyer says he wants to keep the Cheyenne, Wyo., granted the group an "intimate, friendly, family character" of injunction halting the land swap until the ski area. after Cl'V's case is heard in September. But his proposal would more than CTV argues that Congress voted to double the existing development at the allow a land swap but didn't require a base. of the ski hill, lead to construction swap. That decision, crv says, was left of two "Italian style" hilltop villages in Forest Service hands. overlooking the base, and transform the In the meantime, the purchase winter ski area into a four-season desti- option Bergmeyer held on the Snake nation reson. River property ran out and the land was The new Grand Targhee would sold. There is other desirable property have the same skier capacity as the Jack- along the South Fork, however, although son Hole Ski Resort on the other side of the only land mentioned in the bill has the Tetons. nowbeen sold. The proposal has generated a strong This has led Bergmeyer to ask for reaction from a group calling itself Citi- dismissal of the CTV lawsuit. CTY, zens for Teton Valley, organized to however, wishes to pursue the larger . oppose the expansion. Bergmeyer ~laims issues raised by the failed trade or any that CTV members are wealthy residents . other trade. who already have their houses and land, CTV has also appealed the Forest carol and Mory Bergmeyer and "don't want anyone else to have a Service appraisal of the Grand Targhee view." Bergmeyer says resort expansion I property. CTV claims in thy appeal that would be good for the valley's economy, the land at the base of the resort was and that the area needs the boost because ,appraised at only $2,500 per acre, or 10 "Farming in the valley is the pits, any- They came to ski, stayed to build percent of what some subdivided land in way." Teton Valley is going for. The Forest When Mory and Carol Bergmeyer's tiny town in the Teton Valley, a few March 1987 plans for a Sun Valley, Ida- Mike Whitfield, a wildlife biologist Service has not yet ruled on that appeal. miles downhill from the resort they had ho, ski vacation fell through, the young bought. . and crv spokesperson, says that CTV couple made reservations at a reson they members are mostly farmers and ranch- The larger issue raised by the Grand Left behind were puzzled friends. had never heard of - Grand Targhee Ski ers who raise barley, wheat, potatoes and , Targhee fight is whether the Teton Valley Mory says, "We were very successfulin Area on the west side of the Tetons. Boston and left a lot behind - we had livestock. All income levels are repre- i will become more like Jackson Hole. The vacation was a success. In fact, sented in the membership, he says, but I In pall, that process is already under lots of things and high regard there." they loved Grand Targhee so much they most members aren't wealthy. ; way. The southern Teton Valley is When asked how his new life in tiny bought it Whitfield admits that Teton Valley becoming a bedroom community for Alta differed from life in crowded Mory Bergmeyer left the Boston farmers have had a tough time in the val- workers priced out of Jackson. These Boston, Mory Bergmeyer replied, "It's real estate development firm he started ley recently, but that agriculture has commuters brave, a twice-daily 30-mile not all that different I still spend most, of and his wife, Carol, left her management the day inside working.", turned up in the past year. Whitfield also trip over the winding IO-percent grades consulting firm. says that there-is reason to be optimistic of 8,400-foot TetonPass, -D.M. Whitfield notes that this new, third Theirnew home was Alta, Wyo., a about the future -::- Teton Valley's high land boom follows a 1969 spree brought elevation doesn't harbor many insect on by the establishment of Grand pests, and the market for organically Targhee ski area, and talk of resort declare eminent domain over the grown produce is growing. HOTLINE expansion in the late 1970s, when all townsite, a 'procedure allowed in In fact, says Whitfield, the major ~===~' Western ski resorts except for Targhee Nevada. Parks says that the mining threat to agriculture is Bergmeyer's i seemed to be plagued by snow droughts. ' Mine threatens to company has promised not to take that plans. According to Whitfield, the reson route. Meanwhile, the company's expansion could lead to the demise of swaUowtown While open land in Jackson Hole is blasting is already subjecting the town to agriculture in Teton Valley. He says protected to some extent by national dust and noise up to 16 hours a day, sev- many farmers lease the land they work park boundaries and an active Jackson en days a week .. and would be pushed out of the valley by . Hole Land Trust, Whitfield says Teton the land rush development would bring. Valley doesn't even have planning and Loggers have a murky "Even though farm income can be zoning regulations to help prevent its fairly marginal, these are people who image agricultural open space from sprouting have been here a while who could have condominiums and subdivisions. left the valley to make big bucks else- Will a $12 million public relations Geography is also a barrier to con'. where. Instead, they chose to stay for the campaign help the timber industry trol. The Teton County, Wyo., commis- rural lifestyle in the valley," he says. overcome its bad image in the Pacific sioners have already approved Bergmey- ·For the moment, CTV has halted the er's concept plan for the resort Northwest? At least 12 companies plan land exchange the expansion needs. The to spend that much over the next three Neighboring Teton County, Idaho, swap approved by Congress, whose years to gain public support for logging. Iwhich includes Teton Valley and stands approval is required for interstate land The national campaign of television and to be affected the most by the possible exchanges, would trade land at the base magazine ads is planned for people just reson expansion, has no official say over of Grand Targhee in Wyoming for prime \ IBergmeyer's plans. becoming aware of old growth and bald eagle habitat along the South Fork forest-management issues. "Pressures of the Snake River in Idaho. against the industry are such that we Whitfield says crv recognizes the have to get out and tell our story," Jim - Don Mitchell ecological importance of the South Fork Bradbury, a Weyerhaeuser spokesman, -I land, but wants the Forest Service to toldAP. n..... un

Higb Country News - September 11, 1989.5 HOTLINE Cenex wants to dr/U Cenex Corporation continues to seek permits to drill two controversial oil wells that are next to Glacier National Park in Montana and within a river corri- dor designated wild and scenic. Court ' challenges have come from environmen- tal groups which say grizzlies and wolves frequent the area of the North Fork Flathead River. One oil well permit on private land was revoked on Aug. 18 by a district court judge, who ordered the Montana Board of Oil and Gas Conser- vation to start over again with advertised public hearings. The North Fork Preser - ' vation Council and Montana Environ- mental and Infonnation Center, filers of the suits, hailed the decision. A nearby well on state land may be drilled, how- ever. On Aug. 22, the Montana Supreme Court found sufficient the state's 1983- , 84 environmental review and operating plan. A district court had told the state to file an environmental impact statement because of potential cumulative effects George Gillette, chairman of the the office of the Interior Secretary sold 155,000 acres of the reserva- of oil and gas drilling in the remote Fort Berthoud Indian Tribal Coun- in Washington, D.C., on May 20, tion to the government for the North Fork country. Environmental cil, covers his face as he weeps in 1948. The treaty signed that day Garrison Dam groups are concerned that such wells could lead to major oil development in a wild valley under consideration for des- Indian land dispute opens old wounds ignation as an international bioreserve by the U.S. and Canadian governments. Efforts by North Dakota tribes to Sakakawea included 94 percent of the Floyd Robb, who owns a cabin on The Montana Board of Oil and Gas Con- reclaim about 5,900 acres from the Army three tribes' crop and grazing land. Dis- the lake, says an y land returned to the servation will hold a public hearing Sept. Corps of Engineers along Lake placed people were shunted off to the tribes should be accompanied byan obli- 14 in Kalispell, Mont., on the Cenex per- Sakakawea, a Missouri River reservoir, dry and open uplands above the river gation to allow access. "Unless there are mit still in question. For more infonna- are not going well. The problem is a dis- valley. The vast reservoir also split the specific provisions for access connected tion on North Fork drilling issues contact pute over access. reservation, isolating one half from the to the return, this will continue to be an the Montana Environmental Information Last April, Lois Little Owl, a mem- other. issue," he says. Center, Box 1184, Helena, MT 59601 ber of the Three Affiliated Tribes, dug a Garrison Dam was built as part of Robb blames at least part of his cur- (405/443-2520). trench across a road on her property that , the Pick-Sloan Plan to harness the Mis- . rent access troubles on the Corps of cut access to 18 vacation cabins on Lake souri River and prevent flooding to Engineers. He criticizes the agency for Sakakawea. Little Owl complains that downstream cities and farmland. But the 'selling, the lots and for, building public cabin-owners dump uash.cut fences and public works project was destructive as recreation facilities without first obtain- drive vehicles on her property. well. ing proper access across Indian lands. \ Though the situations are officially In South Dakota, five reservations 'This issue of access has been a dif- unrelated; tension stemming' from the. lost lands to the project. In both Dakotas, ficult issue for 20 years. The Corps has trenched road has spilled over to the the Sioux people lost 202,000 acres. All consistently denied responsibility," says land-return issue. Non-Indians are wor- suffered, but Fort Berthold suffered most Robb, "but they created the problem." ried that access to the popular reservoir of all. The Corps began selling lakeside will be threatened if the tribes get some While Pick-Sloan engineers went lots in 1962. Corps spokesman Doug of their land back. ' out of their way to prevent reservoirs Misterek says that Mercer County The land-return issue is controver- from inundating white communities, informed his agency that access through sial in its own right, with a painful histo- Indian concerns were ignored. Indian property was secured. But Mis- ry dating to the 19408. It began when the "The Corps was still negotiating terek says the county used incorrect legal federal government secured title to with us about our land as the water descriptions for the access road. Since 155,000 of the choicest acres on the Fort backed up behind the dam reached our then, cabin owners have paid a yearly Berthold Indian Reservation to construct ankles," recalls Edward Lone Fight. fee to the tribes to reach their cabins. Garrison Darn and accommodate Lake The tribes received a $12.6 million Sakakawea. settlement but no lasting benefits. They While Floyd Robb and his neigh- George Gillette, who was tribal gained no discounts on Garrison Dam bors have receruly worked out a tempo- chairman of the Mandan, Hidatsa and power, no stock watering opportunities rary agreement with the tribes for an Arikira tribes four decades ago, made a in the reservoir, no grazing along the alternative route to their cabins, the somber forecast while signing the sale Black bear reservoir and no removal of trees of access squabble continues to muddy the documents on May 20, 1948: "The mem- lands scheduled to be permanently "excess land" issue. Edward Lone Fight bers of the tribal council sign this con- Indian remains may flooded. says the tribes are waiting for a settle- tract with heavy hearts ... the future does The power discount would have, ment of the access controversy before go home not look good to us." been especially helpful because many of restarting the campaign to regain land A tentative agreement between the new Indian homes on the colder and around the lake. American Indian leaders and the Smith- History proved Gillette correct. windier uplands were electrically heated. The Corps of Engineers, however, sonian Institution could end a debate After 41 years, the reservation's three The Corps forbid the- tribes from appears reluctant to return the land. over who owns Indian remains and arti- tribes have never recovered from losing using any of the settlement money to Doug Misterek says the Corps held pub- facts stolen from graves or taken from the Missouri River bottom land that had hire attorneys to seek more benefits. lic meetings in the area to "determine battlefields. The compromise would supported their agricultural way of life. In 1986, a tribal advisory council public reaction to the return." Misterek require the Smithsonian to return on The tribes had been permanent residents convened by Congress detennined that warns there was considerable concern. request any of its 18,600 remains and of the river valley for an estimated some Fort Berthold lands taken for Lake '. "A lot of folks think the land was artifacts linked.with "reasonable certain- 10,000 years. Sakakawea were not needed by the purchased with public money and it ty" to present-day tribes, reports the The present chairman, Edward Lone Corps. Some 5,891 acres along the reser- should remain public," he says. New York Times. "This would send a Fight, confirms Gillette's foreboding. voir were identified as "excess lands," That attitude rankles Indian leaders, strong signal to society that the Indian "Garrison Darn devastated the economic and the three tribes began efforts to who accuse the Corps of continuing to dead are entitled to be reburied in proper base and the cultural ~dc~oct~.~tructure regain their.former property. , 'T . , ignore tribal needs. , ;. j circumstances just lik~ anyone else," of the tribes," he says. "We want to develop the sites," says , "The Corps thinks this is a war," • says Walte~ Echo-Hawk, a lawyer for the "After the dam, what had been a Edward Lone Fight. "The tribes are not says Edward Lone Fight. "That's their Native American Rights Fund in Col- self-sustaining group of people, with vir- interested in denying access to anyone," mentality." He says since it took con- orado." "That's a signal that has to be tually no unemployment and no welfare, he adds. gressional pressure to get the Corps to sent." Two universities have already was in big trouble. We now have unem- I Non-Indians say the access prob- admit there were excess lands in the first agreed to return entire collections to ployment running to 70 percent and seri- lems encountered by the 18 cabin own- place, it may take Congress to make sure requesting tribes, but the American ous social problems that are connected to ers reflects what could happen if more the lands are returned. Anthropological Association continues ' our economic problems," the chief says. Sakakawea land becomes the property of •to insist that only close relatives should The 155,000 acres drowned by Lake the tribes. - Peter Carrels have remains returned. 6-Higb eou""Y News - September 11, 1989 Intense water fight 'may drown Colorado wilderness bills

After two years of dead-end negoti- Eric Twelker, an attorney with the ation between environmentalists' and group, said: "We want a precedent for no ;2 water users to hammer out a Colorado downstream rights. If Wirth is willing to wilderness bill, Colorado's senators have ~ scuttle downstream rights, we can have a al bill:' taken matters in their own hands. KEY W Actes Z The water users' language would But the legislative effort is begin- 1. BuflaloPeaks 58.160 ning to look as futile as the negotiations, 2. Cannibal Plateau 69,940 overturn recent court decisions granting 3. Davis Peak 36,000 reserved water rights to wilderness, with Sen. Tim Wirth, D, leading environ- 4. Fossil Ridge 55.560 5. GreenhomMtn 24,130 Those rights were affirmed in 1985 by mcnlalists against Sen. Bill Armstrong, 6. Lost Creek . 11.000 R., and the water users. 7. Oh-Be:.Joylul 5.500 Judge John Kane in federal district court 8. 81. Louis-Vasquez _24.160 in Denver, in response to a Sierra Club One thing is clear: any solution will 9. Sangre de CrislO 252,080 10. Service Creek 54,700 suit. have consequences far beyond Col- 11. South San Juan 32,800 orado's borders. 12. Spanish Peaks 19,570 The precedent for wilderness water 13. Spruce Cfeek ...... 8,000 rights lies with the 1906 Winters Doc- The controversy is not about what 14. Weminuche additions 8,650 15. West Needles 22, 110 trine, a U.S. Supreme Court decision that areas to preserve. Proposals have varied 16. Wheeler 25,000 from former Rep. Ray Kogovsek's 17. Williams Fork 40,000 says Congress, in creating Indian reser- ' 18. Big Blue 3,900 372,48'3-acre proposal in the 98th vations, also assigned to those reserva- Congress to then-Rep. Tim Wirth's Proposed wlldernsli tions enough water to achieve their pur- study uen: poses. In the same way, Judge Kane 773,675-acre proposal in 1985. Arm- 19. Piedra ... strong said his proposal is for approxi- 20. Purgatory Flats ruled that when Congress creates wilder- rnately 550,000 acres; Wirth's new bill is ness areas, they come with enough water for about 750,000 acres of wilderness. to achieve their purposes. While boundaries have been juggled Kane's ruling is under appeal, but and areas added and deleted, the ques- Sen, Tim Wirth's proposed wilderness areas in Colorado Twelker said the water users see federal tion was never about the desirability of legislation as providing the only real additional wilderness. The public has security .. agreement was hands off water in the areas. The water developers don't have a spoken on that point, and the politicians Mark Collier, chair of the Rocky headwaters. But potential fuiure down- leg to stand on," he said. have.listened, Mountain region of the Sierra Club, stream additions to the wilderness sys- The developers; however, have said The sticking point is water rights. agrees that more is at slake than 750,000 tem are another mailer. In those areas, repeatedly that they want this bill to set- Early in the negotiations, the Colorado acres of Colorado rocks and ice wilder- there are a multitude of conflicts tle rather than avoid the wilderness water Water Congress - representing water ness. between water flowing in streams and rights issue. In particular, they want users in the state - insisted that any "A tremendous amount of energy developers' interest in diverting water. wilderness water rights renounced, now wilderness legislation should state that has gone into protecting these lands, but Wirth and the environmentalists and forever, in the beadwaters or at low- the Colorado wilderness system has no we're not very likely to allow the lan- er elevations. In effect, they want to "express or implied water rights:' have given some ground on this ques- guage renouncing water rights for future trade action on the proposed Colorado The contended areas, with one tion; Kirk Koepsel, wilderness coordina- wilderness in the bill just to get it," he wilderness areas for a ban on wilderness exception, are all in the headwaters of tor for ,the Colorado Environmental said. "Especially when it would affect all Coalition, calls Wirth's latest a water rights anywhere in the West. mountains with little demand on their proposal future wilderness and could be used all significant compromise. In response to Wirih's bill, a' coali- water, and therefore little potential for over the country:' tion of water users joined under the ban- conflict between water dedicated to "I think Sen, Wirth, has come up Armstrong, who retires in 1990, has ner of the Colorado Farm Bureau and keeping a wilderness area whole and said that a wilderness bill is one of his with a position that is middle ground, , denounced Wirth's attempt to get a bill water needed for development. that has effectively broken the argument top priorities. But unless he and Wirth without the water language they seek. Armstrong, in his 1986 wilderness of the developers. He separated the can reach agreement, neither senator is has One of the groups is the Mountain States bill, did point out that at times W?'er is pTOJ1Osedareasfrom downstream wilder- likely to get a bill Ibis session. Legal Foundation, a nonprofit group rep- diverted out of tbe headwaters to Denver ness and written nolbing that would give resenting extractive users of public area cities. Nevertheless, the general -Ron Baird implied water rights to downstream lands. Activist Russell Means enters Navajo fray HOTLINE Moly mine reopens WINDOW ROCK, Ariz. - In the organized our people to restore our gov- The Indian leader was in Montana wake of the July 20 killing of twosup- ernment and we seek your advice and recently to join forces with Crow Chair- Molycorp, Inc. is reopening its porters of ousted Navajo Chairman Peter assistance in reorganizing our tribal gov- man Richard Real Bird against the feds, Questa molybdenum mine in Taos Coun- . MacDonald during a demonstration, ernment, " but Thompson now says he Real Bird and 26 Crow tribal members ty, N.M., after a three-year hiatus. But another well-known Indian leader has doesn't remember signing the letter, were indicted on corruption charges in environmenlalists worry that proposed come to the fore on ihe Navajo Reserva- Weeks after the two demonstrators July. new tailings ponds, close to a wild and tion. were killed by Navajo police, whom a According to Navajo press secretary scenic stretch of the Rio Grande River, Indian activist Russell Means, now a crowd was also trying to place under cit- Duane Beyal, interim Navajo Chairman pose a tbreat. Existing ponds at the mine resident of Chinle, Ariz., has been mak- izens arrest, Means organized another Leonard Haskie, who attended the Crow have a lO-year capacity but company ing local headlines for weeks. protest march in Window Rock. Fair in August, concluded from his visit officials say they need to move now. Means, 51, broke onto page one in With three Navajos and a small that Crows are as upset with their chair- Constructing a new tailings dump will early July when he grabbed James crowd of Lakota-Sioux and. Anglo man as the Navajos are with lbeirs. lake at least five years, reports the Albu- Stevens, the Bureau of Indian Affair's American Indian Movement members, "I could boil it down to one phrase," querque Journal. Molycorp has filed Navajo Area director, and held him in a Means marched to the Window Rock Beyal said. "Birds of a feather flock mining claims on Guadalupe Mountain headlock in Stevens' office before a pha- District Court. As they passed by, Nava- together:' near Questa for the new ponds, and a lanx of reporters and cameramen. jo onlookers chanted: "Go home, Rus- Navajo officials have estimated that final BLM environmental study is Means, who was peeled off Stevens sell." it could cost the tribe as much as $1 mil- expected by the end of the month, The twice by BIA officers, said he was trying Means said he had a right to be on lion to investigate and prosecute Mac- company Says jobs are at slake - nearly to place the area director under citizen's the Navajo reservation by virtue of his Donald. Already some $400,000 has 200 people are now on Molycorp's $8 arrest, marriage to a Navajo. That argument been spent on security, $200,000 has million payroll for the mine, and 100 Like MacDonald, Means uses fiery was undercut by the news ihe day before been set aside for special legislative more workers are planned for next year. rhetoric to accuse the BIA of installing a that his wife, Gloria, had asked Navajo counsel and $100,000 allocated to pay Environmenlalists say the reopened mine is a threat to the river valley and are puppet regime, thereby creating turmoil police to escort her to her home to pick special prosecutors. on lbe reservation. He says the trouble up some clothes after Means allegedly But MacDonald'ssupporters'charge gearing up for what could be a pivotal comes from the BIA's usurpation of trib- beat her. that the legal effort could cost the tribe 'legal baule over federal mining and river al sovereignty, and not from MacDon- Although Means described his home $6 million a month, protection laws if the BLM approves ald's alleged corruption, or the Navajo trouble as a simple quarrel, a tribal pros- At this point, six months after Mac- Molycorp's plans. Tribal Council's February vote to strip ecutor refused to drop the case even after Donald was removed from power, exag- the chairman of his authority until he Gloria Means asked that charges be gerations and rumors receive such cur- clears his name. dropped. ' rency across the reservation that the Means, who will be tried in tribal Means was arrested by Navajo Haskie administration recently tried to Right now, of course, the Denver court on assault charges, says he was police Aug. 31 after he failed to appear quell a rumor that the BIA was resuming Front Range is a model of orderly asked to help in a letter from suspended for a court hearing on the case. the dreaded and hated livestock reduc- growth. Navajo Vice Chairman Johnny R. Meanwhile, federal and state inves- tion program of the 1930s and in fact Hubert Farbes, head of Ibe Denver Thompson. Means told the Arizona tigations or' alleged corruption by Mac- had already begun to kill and bum sheep. Water Board, told the Environmental Daily Sun: "1bat's one of Ibe reasons I Donald plods on with no indication Protection Agency that wilbout the pro- attempted to arrest Ibal idiot, Stevens." when - or if - MacDonald will be' -George Hardeen posed Two Forks Dam, real estate devel- The June 12 letter states: "We have indicted. 1\ opment around Denver' could proceed haphazardly. , 'I Higb Country News-September 11,1989-7 Biologists give up on foster parenting-of whoopers To wildlife watchers everywhere, Hagedorn, the festival's incoming presi- the whooping crane symbolizes how a dent. species may be brought back from the "But we still have the sandhills, and brink of extinction. the Chamber of Commerce has come up From only 14 birds in 1941 and 33 with tremendous maps of places to see in 1952, the main flock of wild whoop- wildlife and waterfowl. It still has the ing cranes has grown to more than 130. potential for being a big, big weekend." But because that single flock could be Indian rock art attests to sandhill reduced or wiped out, even as a hurri- cranes' presence in the surrounding San cane killed one small wild flock in the Luis Valley since prehistoric times, but 1940s, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Ser- the idea of a crane festival arose only vice began in 1975 to create a secoud five years ago, said Bill Metz, the local wild flock in the Rocky Mountains. school superintendent The $1.5 million effort has not suc- "I was at an Economic Development ceeded. In June, the U.S. Fish and Committee meeting at the Chamber of Wildlife Service and its Canadian coun- Commerce when the question came up: terpart called for an end to the 14-year- What do we have in Monte Vista that's old "cross-fostering project." unique and interesting to other people in Among the people most saddened Colorado?" Metz recalled. by the news are residents of Monte Someone suggested the whooping Vista, a small southern Colorado town cranes, and the festival, complete with that developed a civic festival around the bus tours of the Monte Vista National twice-yearly appearance of the mil white Wildlife Refuge, wildlife art exhibits, a whoopers in the surrounding grain fields. banquet and a San Luis Valley baked "Cross-fostering" refers to placing potato lunch emerged. eggs from one species in the nest of The off-season economic impact to another that will raise it as its own. The Monte Vista, primarily an agricultural town with a population of about 4,000, is whoopers' foster parents are the slightly Male whooping crane wears both an identifying band and radio smaller sandhill cranes. They are. part of transmitter. noticeable, Hagedorn said. The 1990 a flock of roughly 25,000 that migrates Crane Festival, originally set for March 24-25, may be moved into April, he said. up the Rio Grande Valley from southern they may not be sexually imprinted to tain birds could thrive as well as those in While huge flocks of sandhill cranes New Mexico through Colorado and into perform and to respond to their own the main flock it would take 50 years to a summer nesting area centered on the settling into a San Luis Valley barley species' courtship routines. It was not reach a population of six breeding pairs. Gray's Lake National Wildlife Refuge in field are a marvelous sight, area resi- that they saw themselves as sandhill As a result, the effort to create a sec- southeastern Idaho. dents may have not seen the end of the cranes; instead they might be "incom- ond flock will take a different path in the whooping cranes. Even though the flock The whooping crane eggs came plete" whooping cranes. future, Lewis said. He expects more from two sources. Some were rushed to is down to 13, no attempt will be made To remedy this lack of familiarity, attempts will be made to place captive- Gray's Lake from captive whoopers kept to remove them, said Jim Lewis of the biologists last May shipped a six-year- reared females with cross-fostered wild U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. at the Patuxent Wildlife Research Center old female from the Patuxent captive males. In addition, some of the new tech- in Maryland. Others were taken from flock to the refuge at Gray's Lake. There In addition, attempts may be made whooper nests at the main flock's nest- niques may increase the flock, and cer- they put her in an enclosure within the to establish a non-migratory whooper ing ground, Wood Buffalo National tainly the reason for its original creation territory of a wild, foster-reared male, He flock in Florida. Those birds would be Park, on the boundary of Alberta and the has not ceased. took interest in her, and after a week for raised as naturally as possible in captivi- Nerthwest.Territeries-in Canada. ,. "The concept of establishing a sec- Iarniliarizauon, she was released.' ty; completely isolated from people. A Between 1975 and 1988, when the ond wild whooping crane flock is still The two birds paired off and mated similar technique was used to supple- cross-fostering was suspended because strongly supported," Lewis said. butdid not build a nest. In June the male ment the wild population of the non- "The Arkansas (Texas) wboopers of drought conditions at Gray's Lake, began to moult, and moved into the cen- migratory Mississippi' sandhill crane, some 288 whooping crane eggs were ter of the marsh. The female was joined another endangered species. are just too vulnerable to natural or man- tak\n to, Idaho and placed with foster caused disasters." by another male, although no observer Meanwhile, at Country Harvest, - Coos S. Clifton parents--:--Of 'these, 210 hatched and 85 ever saw them mate. Glen Hagedorn's floral shop in Monte chicks survived to flight age. The rest Biologists also tried capturing wild Vista and unofficial headquarters for the. succumbed to predators such as coyotes, cross-fostered females to place them in annual Monte Vism Crane Festival, the cold weather, disease and other factors. males' territories. Mating was unsuc- mood is still upbeat HOTLINE Cross-fostered whoopers suffered cessful. "Last year we changed the name high mortality. According to the U.S. More discouraging news came from from Wbooping Crane Festival to just Independence Pass: Fish and Wildlife Service, 64 percent of Dr. Oz Garton, a University of Idaho Monte Vista Crane Festival because we How scenic? Canadian-bred birds survived from biometrician. According to Garton's sta- were thinking that (cross-fostering pro- banding time to Nov. I the following tistical models, even if the Rocky Moun- ject cancellation) might happen,", said A proposal by the Forest Service to year, but the rate in cross-fostered birds designate 12,095-foot-high Indepen- was only 47 percent. Survival of year- dence Pass in Colorado as a scenic lings in Canada was 96 percent, but in byway is drawing fire, reports the Aspen cross-fosteredbirds only 58 percent. 'No wolves' edict may change Times. An amendment to the White Riv- Similarly, among birds two to eight, er and Arapaho National Forest Plan years old, 97.5 percent of the main flock Wolves and grizzly bears are not associated with something as ridiculous proposes that the agency publicize Col- survived each year, but only 83.6 percent likely to reappear anytime soon in Col- as this document," he added. Ayers also orado Highway 82 between Twin Lakes of the Rocky Mountain flock survived. orado. But the state's wildlife commis- reminded the DOW that it bas a legal and Aspen as a scenic route: The road At its height, the Rocky Mountain sion will consider a proposal this month mandate to protect endangered species. will not be widened, but the agency will whooping crane flock numbered 34 that would allow reintroduction efforts Judy Sheppard, who heads DOW's add additional pullouts and signs, birds, but by spring 1989 it had dropped - as long as they are preceded by vigor- endangered species section, acknowl- upgrade campsites and provide them to 13. Adult cranes perished in collisions ous scientific study and, ample public edged it was pressure from Ayers and with water so the Forest Service can with fences and powerlines, from disease comment periods. Smith that led to the commission's deci- charge camping fees. Bob Miller, at the and from predation. That the commission will even sion to reconsider the resolution. White River forest; says the amendment And yet, with all the losses, a num- entertain a discussion about changing its Most wolf advocates agree that rein- is necessary to generate additional rev- ber of fostered female whoopers sur- seven-year-old resolution opposing troduction will probably have to take enue. Some Aspen residents, however, vived to mating age of four or five years wolves and grizzlies is a victory for Glen place in Yellowstone Park before it has a say the agency is mortgaging the forest old. None, however, successfully paired Ayers and Jill Smith. Ayers and Smith chance in Colorado. But there are plenty for a quick buck. Dottie Fox of the off, laid eggs and nested. are members of the LaPorte, Colo.-based of wolf proponents who think some Aspen Wilderness Workshop says scenic Why not? The biologists in charge, Western Earth Support Cooperative. Ear- areas in Colorado could support wolf- designation and improvements will add crane coordinator Jim Lewis and Rod lier this year they wrote letters to the packs. traffic along the extremely narrow road, Drewien of the university of Idaho, cite Division of Wildlife challenging the Those areas include the Uncompah- increasing the risk of accidents. Fox also these possibilities. commission's January 1982 resolution. gre Plateau, the Weminuche Wilderness, says that more recreation vehicle facili- First, there were always relatively The 1982 resolution stated that the the Flattops Wilderness and Rocky ties will damage the forest experience few mature fostered whoopers spread commission would "oppose every person Mountain National Park. 'for other visitors. The proposal also over a wide area. Somespent summers or entity which may now or in the future In addition, grizzly researcher Tony includes repairing hiking trails, protect- in the Green River Valley of Wyoming; suggest or plan the introduction of either Povilitis of Boulder published a paper ing archaeological' resources, maintain- others showed up in UlJIh. the gray wolf or the grizzly bear as free- this year claiming that the South San ing roads and studying future recreation- As a result, opportunities to court roaming populations." Juan Mountains in Colorado could pro- al opporiunities. For more information and mate were reduced. Ayers called the resolution a "joke." vide "core habitat" for 50-100 grizzly contact the White River National Forest Since the Rocky Mountain whoop- The DOW "must be embarrassed' to be bears. _- Barry Noreen 3031945-2521, or the Aspen Wilderness ers were .raised by a different, species, Workshop, 3031925-4146. UneR T

=N ~=~ Walking along this high prairie in all species to the land. He would eventu- .:< .!< the sombre sunset with a howling wind ally conclude, and express in A Sand .c Ii u tossing the old cedars along the rim, County Almanac, that wilderness, in t< '"oS! addition to its material value, was essen- = and a soaring raven croaking over the I, ."" abyss below, was a solemn and impres- tial for scientific, cultural, recreational sive experience. Jumped three white- and aesthetic reasons. 0" tails right out on the prairie but it was As assistant forester in charge of too late to see ·horns. They were very operations, a post he acquired in 1919, p pretty bounding over the sea of yellow he studied and inventoried the forests in n gama grass with the wind blowing District III (the Datil, Carson, Manzano, g them along like thistledown. Gila, Santa Fe and Apache forests). He - Aldo Leopold, trip to the Gila was alarmed by overgrazing, soil erosion s" backcountry, 1927, Aida Leopold: His and diminishing game herds. But his pri- e Life and Work, Curt Meine mary concern was the disappearance of 0 large roadless areas. tl Leopold was not alone in his grow- f, When Aldo Leopold ing recognition that the nation's forests arrived in New Mexico and wildlands had worth beyond their a in 1909, fresh out of the material value. The National Park Ser- a Yale Forest School, the Gila was one of vice had eagerly embarked on a "good tI only six roadless areas left in the South- roads" plan aimed at bringing the newly g west. "By the mid 1920s the Gila was motorized nation to the scenery and ~

, the. only one left," says Leopold's biog- recently constructed visitor centers of its 1 rapher Curt Meine. national parks. The Forest Service itself u Leopold was a naturalist and a was just beginning to promote scenery hunter who became a forester. In the and recreation' as forest 'products.': But i'" years he spent in the Southwest working Leopold 'had another kind of sport and b for the U.S. Forest Service, he founded beauty in mind. v the profession of game management and "Mechanized recreation already has u later helped create the science of ecolo- seized nine-tenths of the woods and • gy. He would go on to help found The mountains" he would later write. uA Wilderness Society and write the lyrical decent respect for minorities should dcd- 0< and descriptive book, A Sand County icate the other tenth to wilderness:' n, White Water Canyon in the Gila Wilderness Almanac. An independent and visionary al thinker, Leopold also had the ability to t> Our ability to perceive quality in communicate and build relationships OJ nature hegins, as in art, with the pretty. with local hunters and ranchers alike. He 01 It spent years forging a game protection expands through successive stages of the beautiful to values as yet uncap- league out of Albuquerque sportsmen, all \I tured by language. association which helped to reform the t - Leopold, A Sand County TheGHa New Mexico Game and Fish Depart- Almanac • ment.

n 1919 Leopold found a kin- Land, then, is not merely soil; it is dred spirit in Arthur Carhart, a a fountain of energyflowing through 0 Ilandscape architect working Turns 65 circuit of soils, plants and animals. for the Forest Service in Denver. The Food chains are the living ~hannelf I agency asked Carhart to design .the 4 I which conduct energy upward; death placement of vacation homes around' I Our First Wilderness and decay return it to the soil. The cir- Trapper's Lake in western Colorado. He cuit is not closed; some energy is dissi- had also toured the Quetico-S uperior pated in decay, some is added py region between Minnesota and Ontario. In that country which Iks around off the adjacent 202,OOO-acre Aldo absorption from the air, some is stored In both cases he suggested that the areas the headwaters of the Gila River I was Leopold Wilderness. The Gila ranges in in soils, peats and long-lived forests; remain. undeveloped and that the Forest reared. This range was our fatherland; altitude from 5,000 feet to nearly ll,OOO but it is a sustained circuit, like a slow- .Service manage the land for wilderness among these mountains our wigwams feet. Known for its rich riparian habitats, ly augmented revolvingfund of life. scenery and recreation. - Leopold, A Sand County were hidden; the scattered valleys con- .it is home to varied and numerous "The thought of preserving portions Almanac tained our fields; the boundless wildlife in the West. of the national forests in their wild Slate prairies, stretching away on every side, "There are seven different life zones seems to have occurred to Leopold at were our pastures; the rocky caverns . in the United Slates," says Andrew Gul- Leopold came to the Southwest as a least as early as 1913," writes Meine . wereour buying places.... liford, director of Wesltlrn New Mexico utilitarian forester. But his experiences in "He did not advertise the thought. It was, - Geronimo, Apache chieftain, University's museum, "and five of them the region become a source for his devel- quite simply, a radical notion, and it Autobiography(1905) are represenled in the Gila:' oping sense of the interconnectedness of developed only slowly:' Both recreational and species diver- sity make the Gila special to New Mexi- ____ by Becky Rumsey co author Dutch Salmon. He says it com- • bines elements of. the Rocky Mountains n 1924, quietly, and with very and the Sierra Madres of Mexico. little fanfare, the U.S. Forest "Within a hundred miles of Silver IService crealed the first federal City you can go from the Lower Sonoran wilderness reserve. It was the Gila (pro- Zone, which is Chihuahuan grassland nounced hee-Ia) Wilderness of New full of cholla and mesquite, to an alpine Mexico, born out of the urgings of a zone that gets 40 inches of rain or snow- young and eloquent forester named Aldo fall a year and is fun of blue spruce:' Leopold. It would take 40 years and "Take the Gila River as another 6,000 pages of testimony before example," says Salmon, who canoed 200 Congress passed a national wilderness miles down the river and wrote a book bill. In contrast, the document creating about it. "As the water temperature the Gila Wilderness was a mere eight- changes you go from trout, the rare Gila page inter-office memo setting aside trout, browns and rainbows, to mountain nearly 800,000 acres. bass, and then to channel and flathead ' That document, the first declaration catfish:' of independence for wilderness, will be Salmon is current chairman of the on display at the Western New Mexico New Mexico Wilderness Study Commit- University Museum during a Southwest tee, a citizens' advisory group working wilderness symposium and anniversary with the Bureau of Land Management celebration Sept. 29-30. Festivities at the and members of Congress on wilderness Gila National Forest and in Silver City, designation. N.M., mark the 25th anniversary of the "So much has been destroyed by National Wilderness Act and the 65th dams, floods and channelization," he birthday of the first designated wilder- says. "Of the few riparian areas left in ness. the Southwest. the best are found along the Gila and San Francisco rivers:' Both Today the Gila contains 558,000 I . acres - the 1964 Wilderness Act split run through the Gila Wilderness. Gila Wilderness I \ Tarpc LRT ,4.V2

Hlgb CountrY News-September 11, 1989-'J Finally, in 1921, Leopold went pub- . The disastrous occurrence of over- lie with his ideas about wilderness pro- populated deer in the Kaibab National tection. He wrote The Wilderness and Forest caused Leopold to rethink some lis Place in Forest Recreation Policy, of his game management theories, espe- which appeared in the November issue cially when the same kind of range of the Journal of Forestry. destruction and subsequent mass starva- In that article Leopold wrote that the tion threatened to repeat itself in the Gila policy of "greatest good for the greatest and elsewhere. number" in forest planning "had already gone far enough to raise the question of We all strive for safety, prosperity, whether the policy of development ... comfort, long life and dullness. The should continue to govern in absolutely deer strives with its supple legs, the every instance, or whether the principle cowman with trap and poison, the of highest use does not itself demand statesman with pen, the most of us with that representative portions of some machines, votes, and dollars, but it all forests be preserved as wilderness." comes to the same thing: p.ace in our Leopold did not stop with the gener- time. A measure of success in this is all al idea of wilderness preservation. He well enough ..• but too much safety also proposed "setting aside the headwa- seems to yield only danger in the long ters of the Gila River, high in the Mon- run. Perhaps this is behind Thoreau's gollon Mountains of west-central New dictum: In wildness is the salvation of Mexico." According to Meine, the worbJ. Perhaps this is the hidden Leopold's main concern in preserving meaning in the howl of the wolf, long the Gila as a primitive area was that it known among mountains, but setdom was a prime hunting ground. Its econorn- perceivedamong men. ic value was slight. "There was only a , - Leopold, A SandCounty bit of logging," says Meine. "Its main Almanac value was in recreation and in preserving the watershed itself." In 1924, when the Forest Service created the Gila Wilderness, most native By 'wilderness' I mean a continu- predators had been exterminated. Ben ous stretch of country preserved in its Tilly, a contemporary of Leopold's, was natural state, open to lawful hunting a mountain man who killed grizzly bears and fishing, big enough to absorb a and mountain lions for both the Forest two weeks' pack trip, and kept devoid Service and the U.S. Biological Survey. of roads, artificial trails, cottages, or Tilly tracked large predators in the otherworks of man. ' Gila area from 1916 to the 1930s. "He - Leopold's initial definition of traveled with his dogs, his frying pan, his wilderness, from The Wildernessand Its rifle and his knife;" says Gulliford. "He Placein Forest RecreationPolicy,InI was an extraordinary hunter and tracker. He made his own knives, never bathed y today's standards the Gila or shaved, never drank and never killed is still a remote wilderness. anything on Sunday. But he could tree a B No other wilderness bear on Sunday and hold it with his dogs receives fewer visitors. The nearest big while he waited for Monday." cities, El Paso and Tucson, are both over In 1931, the last grizzl y bear was 200 miles away, and nearby Silver City trapped out of the Gila "In 1909, when I ~ has a population 'Ofonly 12,000. It is the first came, to the West," Leopold wrote biggest wilderness area left in the South- later in A Sand County Almanac, "there west, and as Dutch Salmon puts it: "You were grizzlies in every major mountain can really get lost inthere," mass, but you could travel for months "The Gila was a benchmark in without seeing a conservation officer. Leopold's thinking about wild lands," Today there is some kind of conservation says Gulliford. It was also the platform officer 'behind every bush,' yet as from which he sprang into an under- wildlife bureaus grow, our most magnifi- standing of ecology. Leopold hunted and cent mammal retreats steadily toward the fished in the Gila. In the early years he Canadian border. Of the 6,000 grizzlies was concerned about the disappearance officially reported as remaining in areas of big game herds, and that meant that he owned by the United States, 5,000 are in was a proponent of predator control, His Aliska. Only five states have any at all. thinking about predators and their role in There seems to be a tacit assumption that Mountain Man Ben Lilley (left) circa 1910 the health of natural systems would if grizzlies survive in Canada and Alaska change, but onl y gradually. . that is good enough. It is not good enough for me. The Alaskan bears are a distinct species. Relegating grizzlies to Albuquerque _ Alaska is about like relegating happiness to heaven; one may never get there." "By officially designating the Gila 'a wilderness.' » writes biographer Meine, "Western culture had in fact tak- en final possession of the wilderness. It was a conquest, albeit a conquest of the . gentlest kind. It conquered by recogniz- ALOe- ing that there is a point beyond which ~ LEOPOLD the spoils of conquest are no longer com- . • ~ WILDERNESS - mensurate with the value of the van- quished. For all the settlers' energy and Silver .New Cijy impertinence. here was a sign of cultural foresight. a willingness to let a wild place be." Mexico Wilderness is a resource which can shrink but not grow. Invasions can be arrested or modified in a manner to keep an area usable either for recre- ';;~(lItil!1 ation, science .or for wildlife, but the creation of new wilderness in the full sense of the word is impossible. , It,follows, then, that any wilder-. SOURCES: Witderness and the American Mind, ness program is a rearguard action, A Sand COunly Almanac. Aida Leopold, Roderick Nash, Yale University Press, 1967 through which retreats are reduced to 1949 Gila Descending: A Southwestern a minimum. - , Aldo Leopold: His Life and Work, Curt Journey. M.H. Salmon. High Lonesome - Leopold, A SandCounty Meine, The University of Wisconsin Press. Books. 1986 Almanac 1988 _"'ncaT

IO-HigbCountry News-September 11,1989 , Pockets., •. (Conttnuedfrom page 1) million acres is formally designated wilderness. Another six million acres are now being managed as wilderness. Researchers say the death of an ancient tree The timber industry is unlikely to support greater old-growth protection for lands outside the wilderness system. Wilderness, however, is virtually all marks a halfway point: at higher elevations in a narrow range of habitat types. It simply won't meet the legal mandate of preserving the diversity of the region, said Rosalind Yanishevsky, 400 years of growing followed by an independent researcher who studies old growth near Glacier National Park. "Most of wilderness is rocks and ice'," she said. 400 years of decline and decay To meet its legal requirements, the Forest Service sets aside 5- 10 percent of its land outside of wilderness areas. These small plots are scattered through- out the range of elevations, soil and moisture conditions. How should those plots be managed? "There are things out there we don't Paper's conflict of interest hits reporter know anything about," said Richard Hut- protracted set of skirmishes Montana's logged lands, particularly per, taking on the very basis of the econ-~ to, a University of Montana ornitholo- between Montana's timber the private lands, are a mess. omy is a far different matter than tack- gist. "It seems like a lot of land should A industry and this reporter In doing my job I walked the ling city hall, a corrupt judge or even a just be left alone." ended rather abruptly last month. I found clearcuts, the rutted skid trails and the single offending business. .But we have never left land in the myself in that battle in my role as the scoured creekbeds. I had been, as we say region - no matter how remote and environmental reporter for The Missou- here, "on the ground." Anyone who sees But also, as our environmental seemingly untouched - alone. We have lian, a newspaper that covers much of what I saw there can't help but write awareness progresses, it becomes ever fought fires and that has changed the western Montana. about those responsible with a touch of more clear that the real enemy is the face of the land. There's an irony here. Over the years, the stories I wrote passion. consumerism that fuels the American Fire suppression has allowed fir drew fire from the industry. Finally my economy. If we are to have any sort of a trees to flourish, asserting their climax- editor, Brad Hurd, said he had had That's the paradox: seeing and reasonable shot at a decent future for this species status over larch and Pondersoa enough. In a meeting Aug. 17, he said I studying what is happening to the envi- globe, it will come through curbing the pine. What that means is that the old- was to be reassigned to a different beat. . ronment today is bound to spark profligate habits of the American public. growth of the Northern Rockies has .Instead, I quit. activism. Yet most newspapers are come to look like the Douglas fir forests Hurd said his major reason for reas- uncomfortable with activist reporting. The average newspaper's financial of the Northwest. Fire suppression, our signing me was that my personal com- Although this problem crops up from health. depends on fueling those habits. human bias against the catastrophe and rnitrnent to the environment was begin- time to time across the range of political More than half of most newspapers is caprice of nature, has narrowed the ning to show in my work. I suppose I issues, it is far more acute and the con- given over to advertisements for con- sumer goods responsible for our environ- diversity of our forests in the West. can't disagree that it was. This con- flict more fundamental on environmental mental problems. My former newspaper tention that one must try to balance all issues. hat 30-acre plot within the and virtually all others have a basic con- bad news dispassionately brings .the l. ~Ii\jlljt'" l.lfi 1 Lola National Forest is issue beyond a personal conflict. It raises From my perspective, that's true on flict of interest in reporting on the envr- T slowly changing during our the question of whether we can, in this a couple of fronts. ronment. lifetime. The towering larch are dying, rime-of growing environmental degrada- First, the basic battle for the envi- In my case, the conflict finally which is not a bad thing at all in the- tion and crisis, count on traditional ronment in states like Montana is with caught up to me. world of old growth. newspapers to bring the truth to the the natural resource industries that per- Researchers say the death of an American public. meate the economy. For a local newspa- ~ -s-Richard D, Manning; ancient tree marks a halfway point: 400 years of growing followed by 400 years of decline and decay. It is a second life, The agency will keep the upstarts All of this brings into question the of sorts, to shelter and feed the 50 from taking over, Hillis said, by logging definition of old growth. Most of us species of mammals, 85 species of birds out the fir, think of old-growth as simply big trees, and untold number of invertebrates that "It really isn't going to be an old- but that is too simplistic, researchers say, use snags, Yanishevsky said. growth stand, but in 20-30 years, it will The trees are but an element of an look like old growth," he said. interwoven system that is based on cen- But beneath the larch is a thriving To the Forest Service, it's not an turies of relationships. It is, in the richest generation of fir, which gained an oppor- altogether alien concept, the idea of sense of the word, an 'ecosystem. tune toehold through fire suppression. managing nature into a "natural" state. And now, armed with almost no Hillis said climax fir forests have_always Yet Hillis says there really isn't much knowledge of this system, we set out to played a key role in the-region, but they choice. at this point. The issue was essen- manage it or even re-create it. are fast becoming the only player at the tially decided after fires were sup- "I'm not sure we're smart enough to expense of old-growth larch and Pon- pressed, leaving the region in an unnatu- do it," Hillis admitted. derosa pine. On this small plot, the For- ral state. If certain key habitat types are Last year, the New York Times est Service intends to remedy that to be preserved or, arguably, recreated, reported that the nation's largest comput- through something that seems like a mis- then heavy-handed action may be in ers are 'now at work trying to crack a nomer - managed old growth. order, he said. problem that has heretofore -eluded the best efforts of mathematics - generat- M.Senson ing randomness. No matter how hard humans try to be random and capricious, a pattern eventually emerges. Even our most sophisticated thinking machines fail the task.

,. .pparently,~ nature does not Logging area in the West fail. Yanishevsky says that A an Old-growth forest is sim- we randomize ourselves to the point that ply a living record of randomness: a fife we can create old growth?" One way to here, a wind-toppled tree there, an do that, of course, is to let nature call the insect-infestation that leaves a bit of a shots. clearing. Some birds happen to drop a seed,·a predator wipes out some ungu- o lates; and on and on through the cen- turies and epochs. Dick Manning is currently studying "Old growth is a compilation of wilderness-management at,the Universi- chance events," Yanishevsky said. "Can ty of Montana Wilderness Instititute .. , . 1\- T un V2

Htgb Cou,ftryNews-$eptember 11,1989-11 National forest plans in Idaho, Montana get low grades

___ .DhyRichard D. Manning In many of the remaining forests, the Lewis and Clark National Forest in of those minimums would hold up in the issue still is open to appeal, said Montana selected the wolverine to moni- court, others are on shakier ground. n internal Forest Service Doug Glevanik, who oversees planning tor as indicator species. But both species "The Helena and Lewis and Clark . report has concl uded that in the Northern Regioll,.'The vulnerabili- are "totally impossible to monitor." (national forests) both require 5 percent A many of the plans for pro- ty is still there," he said. The Custer National Forest in Mon- old growth within every' given land tecting old growth and critical wildlife "The Forest Service certainly runs tana used "a whole laundry list of non- unit," Hillis wrote. "I'm not sure how habitat in the Northern Rockies are inad-: the risk of legal challenges," said Tom resident songbirds" as indicator species. they can defend it" equate and vulnerable to legal challenge. France, a National Wildlife Federation But because the birds migrate over long The report assessed each forest's Although the report is labeled an attorney who has seen the report. "I distances, it is difficult to determine plan as presenting either a low, moderate "internal working paper" and "not sub- think the report certainly raises serious whether fluctuations in numbers are the or high risk of significant problems in ject to FOiA (Freedom of Information questions about the adequacy of certain result of local conditions or of problems each of four areas: elk, snags, old growth Act)," Forest Service officials in Mis- forest plans." thousands of miles away. and streamside zones. Hillis said in the , soula agreed to release it to High Coun- Part of the problem is that very little A second flaw in existing research interview that the high-risk category is try News. research has been done on old growth occurred in the area of maintaining sort of a "double whammy." Planning The report, called Management specifically in the Northern Rockies, snags. This is a growing concern among standards are so lax that problems devel- Indicator Species/Monitoring White which leaves the Forest Service without biologists because as many as 50 mam- op, he said, and monitoring is so faulty Paper. evaluates what has been done to solid information to guide its manage- mal species and 85 birds depend directly that no one would know the problems preserve old growth, dead trees called ment plan. Still, the Forest Service report on snags. Forests now are required to existed. snags, streamside zones and big-game said a larger issue is that many forest protect these standing dead or dying habitat in each of the I3 forests in the planners in the region ignored the solid trees, but at least a couple of forests paid Forests falling into the "high risk" Northern Region. information that does exist only lip service to the requirement. category for snags were the Beaverhead, The report uses language such as The problem is particularly acute in Research shows that the species that Clearwater, Deerlodge, Gallatin and "embarrassing:' "off the wall" and an area known as "management indicator need snags, particularly the pileated Nez-perce. The Bitterroot, Idaho Pan- "we're really hurting" to describe mea- species." That is the practice of selecting woodpecker, only will. use trees larger sures that have been incorporated in each one species and ensuring its well being than 20 inches in diameter. Nonetheless, handle and Lewis and Clark were listed forest plan. on the assumption that other species that both the Nez-perce in Idaho and the Gal- as "moderate risk" for snags. Although the report was prepared depend on a similar ecosystem also will latin in Montana chose to meet its snag For old growth, high risk forests more than a year ago by Forest Service fare well. requirements with stubs as short as five were the Beaverhead and Lewis and biologists Mike Hillis and Nancy War- That practice is itself suspect, said feet and as skinny as six inches in diam- Clark. At moderate risk were the Bitter- ren, Hillis acknowledged in an interview Sallie Hejl, a Forest Service biologist in eter. root, Deerlodge, Gallatin and Idaho Pan- that officials have taken virtually no charge of research on old growth in the 'This creates a credibility problem," handle forests. The report also classified steps since then to correct the flaws in region. Nonetheless, the practice drives the report said. It also concluded as a moderate risk the old-growth plan of the forest plans. the forest plans' efforts on critical habi- that "most forests ignored" the provision the Flalhead Forest, which was success- The lone exception is the Flathead tat of the National Forest Management Act fully appealed. National Forest in northwest Montana. that requires protection of endangered The Custer was the only forest with Its assessment that the agency's steps to ·egardless of whether the species. Some plans for snags were a plan for streamside areas that was a protect old growth were vulnerable to practice of using indicator "totally off the wall" and with "no track- high risk. Moderate risks. were assessed appeal proved prophetic. A formal R species is acceptable in able rationale." to the Beaverhead, Bitterroot, Clearwa- appeal of the plan was upheld by the ,theory, its application broke down in Each forest also was required to set ter, Gallatin, Lewis and Clark, and Nez- agency's Washington, D.C., office and practice, the report concluded. a percentage of its total area it would perce forests. the forest has since revised its provisions For instance, the Nez-perce National maintain as old growth, generally from As far as elk were concerned, each for old growth. •. Forest in )daho selected the fisher and 5-10 percent While the report said many forest won "low risk" status.

clear-cutting of our beloved aspen on LETTERS Kebler Pass and other areas. In our trav- els, we have seen nothing that rivals the MEXICAN WOLVES beauty of these aspen, with their scabby, chalkily bandaged limbs and quavering Dear HCN, paddle leaves. How devastating it would be to exchange your magnificent aspen Congratulations on the very fine groves for the barren, brown, clear-cut articles' in the June 19 HCN by John patches that would be visible for many Bancroft. The Mexican wolf needs all miles and many years. And just to make the positive publicity it can get and this waferboard, a common building was excellent. material, for Louisiana-Pacific Corp. in Unfortunately, the author was not Olathe, Colo. aware of the activities of Preserve Ari- It remains to be seen what effect zona's Wolves, which was founded in clear-cutting will have on this area's 1988 and announced in HeN. We are a wildlife and watersheds. In Oregon, the people now numbering about 300 nation- effects include a decrease in many wide who are interested in the preserva- tion and eventual reintroduction of the species and severe problems with ero- sion and Mexican wolf. Our first mailing alerted siltation, As in so many of these controver- members to write the Arizona Game and sies, the bottom line seems to be jobs. Fish Commission to ask that the written public attitude survey mentioned in your Just as Oregon loggers can't "eat" the article be rescheduled. It had been cur: spotted owls and old-growth trees many tailed for nearly a year following com- people are trying to save, Colorado log- pletion of the telephone survey. The gers can't eat aspen. Those of you con- commission received 'about 100 letters cerned mainly with the environment will from P.A.W.S. members and it was need to listen to your logger neighbors, directly following this deluge of letters who may come from generations of log- from the public that it rescheduled the gers and not wish, 'understandably, to change jobs. Like so many others in our written survey. There was no doubt that Mexican wolf " our letters produced the desired effect SAVE LQGGERS society - miners, farmers, steel workers - loggers are being forced into a new because there had been no mention of for release of this material, we are still AND TREES rescheduling the written survey prior to being put off and asked to be patient ... style of life. Our sympathies must be this public demand. On a brighter note, we are planning Dear HCN, with them and'the trees. Our last alert encouraged members Arizona Wolf Symposium '90 for March I want to wish you luck as you come to write to Mike Spear, Region 2 director 23 and 24 at Arizona State University. It . For the past few summers, my hus- together as neighbors in your search for of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, will include a background on the myths band and I have come to Colorado's a solution to this problem. But it will asking that Carol Cochran's fine slide. and folklore surrounding the wolf, will spectacular North Fork Valley to escape take more - infonnation, dialogue, cre- show and educational materials be describe the demise of the wolf in the Oregon's heat - not only the heat of ativity and sensitivity - much more reviewed and approved for public Southwest, the status of the wolf in cap- summer but also the unending heat gen- , than mere luck to help you find a com- release. This request, while producing a tivity and the wolf's survival in Mexico. erated by the controversy over clear-cut- promise that saves loggers and trees. reported mass of letters has not, as yet. ting that is so oppressive in our state. produced the 'desired results. After Bobbie Holaday So this summer we were aghast to months of long distance phone calls, lit- 1413 E. Dobbins Rd. .discover a similar controversy raging in . LiDda Mel unkin erally pleading with U.S.F.W.S. officials Phoenix, Arizona 85040 western Colorado over the proposed Corvallis, Oregon 12-Higb Country News - September 11, 1989

LETTERS sion in connection with its reorganiza- eliminate the distorted incentives gov- fire departments, as well as local, state tion as a limited partnership. It makes ernment policy can provide and as we try and federal governments. MARKET SKEPTIC clear what the financial press has dis- to modify the incentives faced by the pri- But even when one says "govern- cussed for almost five years: Plum Creek vate economic actors that encourage ment," it tells us little about the institu- (and other industrial timberland compa- them to ignore environmental values. tional arrangements. A "public" park Dear HCN. nies) is in the process of liquidating the I agree with Mr. Leal that there need not be a "commons." Even with "excess" inventory of old-growth trees should be no fixed, historically deter- public parks, property rights usually are In an earlier op-ed article in H CN so as to generate a large, short-term cash mined line that specifies where markets vested i.n a very particular organization (518/89) I was somewhat skeptical about flow that Wall Street has been drooling and commercial business can produc- which can be given greater or lesser the universal applicability of John 0.lU'r. tively be relied upon and where they autonomy and held responsible in a vari- Baden's "free-market environmental- Champion International is doing the cannot. That line, as he points out, is ety of ways. It is the richness of alterna- ism." Don Leal, one of Baden's col- same thing in the Blackfoot Valley on an constantly shifting. But iHs not con- tive institutional arrangements that needs leagues, responded recently with a even grander scale, and in that location stantly shifting in the direction of more to be critically explored as we seek to lengthy letter (HeN, 7/31/89). Since the there is no checkerboard pattern of own- reliance on markets and commercial solve the environmental problems which usefulness of the market mechanism in ership. Of course, the checkerboard own- businesses. With each generation we find threaten to engulf us. dealing with environmental problems is ership pattern actually works the other some areas where i! appears to be pro- an important current issue, I offer the The emphasis on markets and pri- way around: As private landowners ductive to extend collective, non-com- following thoughts in this ongoing dia- vate businesses that characterizes the butcher their land, the Forest Service is mercia! institutions into areas previously logue. language of the free-marketeers focuses forced to curtail harvests on its lands to left to commercial business. We also find First, the issue is not being for or far too narrowly. The ideological agenda fulfill its legislatively imposed environ- areas previously the domain of govern- against markets but whether markets are they carry with them also may, in the mental obligations. This has led to the ment or non-commercial institutions the solution to the broad range of envi- long run, be seriously in conflict with the Forest Service significantly reducing its which we turn over to commercial busi- ronmental problems that threaten us. My philosophic values of many environmen- harvest activities in the Lolo Creek area nesses. article indicated why I thought environ- We and the rest of the world have talists. It was for these reasons that I mentalists should be skeptical about of the Lolo National Forest, been engaged in ongoing, adaptive urged some open-minded skepticism on embracing the ideology of the free mar- The pattern of private timber coin- experimentation with a variety of institu- the part of those working to protect envi- ket while exploring with an open mind panies liquidating old growth to convert ional arrangements. In all of this, howev- ronmental values when it comes to the specific uses of markets to help solve paper assets to cash is not limited to er, we have always found important grander claims of free market environ- particular environmental problems. Montana. The redwood areas of northern areas of human activity in which we mentalists. It is the peculiar spectacles worn by California and the Cascades in Oregon have felt we had to constrain the role the ideological free-marketeers that I am are experiencing the same thing. This is that private pursuit of profit and markets Thomas Michael Power uneasy about. Those spectacles lead also not a new pattern in our history. played. I expect that as we seek to pro. Missoula, Montana them to see some things that may not Market incentives can easily lead to teet environmental resources, we will really exist, while blinding them to massive environmental destruction, even also find significant situations where we The writer is an economicsprofe s- important aspects of reality. Mr. Leal's when the government is not creating dis- will want to depend upon nonprofit orga- sor and chairman of the economics letter illustrates these problems. torted incentives. That elemental fact nizations, local semi-public organiza- department at the University of Mon- Mr. Leal urges me and other readers must be kept in mind as we work to tions such as cooperatives or volunteer tana. to reconsider the role that markets can play in protecting environmental values. The first example he offers is Nature Conservancy's role in protecting wild- lands and wildlife habitat. This is a baf- fling example. Nature Conservancy is not a market-oriented business. It is the Slime sends Tucsonan scrambling home opposite: a nonprofit, "charitable" orga- ... nization operating outside the commer- __ --lJby John M. Bancroft walked north along the plaza to our ". cial realm heavily supported by "tax meeting place, Abbey, in the company of .', expenditures" from' the federal govern- Ed Abbey said it's easy to leave a pretty woman - his wife, I believe, ment. It is private (although it gets sub- Tucson; he did it lots of times. although we didn't ask -loomed up out " stantial government support through the And so have I, but I always come of the shadows, stopped, and waited for tax codes), but that has little or nothing home to the Soooran Desert, to Tucson us. to do with commercial markets. in particular, because no place but this It was Ray, who as both a journalist Nature Conservancy's commitment , hard, dry country feels like home. and a human being is nine parts skeptic is most certainly not to exploit markets, Abbey was a neighbor of mine. I and one part innocent, who spoke first. years, that just about anything but moun- charge whatever they will bear and max- can't claim him as a friend, at least not in "Edward Abbey. It's good to meet tains will grow there, whether you want imize profits. If that were its commit- the usual sense, as I had talked with him you ... I think." it to or not, That's what finally sent me ment, it would have a much harder time only a handful of times since meeting Abbey just smiled at that, an packing. I remember clearly the horror raising funds to protect wildlands. him a dozen years ago. Like a lot of pe0- amused grin growing first out of his of the moment that sent me over the Nature Conservancy purposely places ple, I was sad to see him leave Tucson hawk's eyes and only later out of his edge. itself outside of the commercial market for the last, irrevocable time this spring, anarchist's beard, and handed over a I have a pair of old-fashioned, high- so that it can effectively pursue its envi- although he didn't go far. beat-up manila envelope containing the topped, lace-up leather hiking boots that ronmental objectives. Our first meeting, carried out in the freely annotated manuscript of his book. I broke in with a stroll along the trail up Mr. Leal's enthusiasm for the mar- , dark of night on the neutral ground of "Use anything you want. Just be Wasson Peak west of Tucson in 1974. I ket leads him to see markets operating the Tucson Community Center plaza, sure I get that back," he said, nodding at loved those boots unreasonably the even where the institutional arrange- was straight out of a spy thriller or the the fat envelope and starting away. Ray moment I laid eyes on them in the win- ments are those, designed to insulate the doperunner's handbook, although he car- and I stayed where we were for a while, dow of the Red Wing shoe store. organization from commercial market ried something far more dangerous than as I recall, arid watched him walk back I didn't put many miles on those forces. Clearly, it would improve every- drugs. into the shadows. , sturdy boots in Florida, and so they sat one's understanding of the role markets Ray Ring and I were editing a now That's the whole story. It doesn't for months on end in the back of a closet can play to- at least distinguish between defunct newspaper at the time, and we hold a candle, I'll admit, to Tony Hiller- in a rented bungalow. Having been built private, non-commercial activities and had heard that Abbey's novel Good man's story about a friend of 'his who for the steamy climate back in the '20s, commercial, market-oriented activities. News was about to go to I?ress. We one cold night in New York recognized with deep overhanging eaves, a wide The array of institutional arrangements is tracked him down by phone at his home William Faulkner stamping his feet verandah and so many windows that far broader than "market" vs. "central "near Oracle" (then just a little town of under a streetlamp outside a bar, and even the lightest breeze found its way in, government." copper miners, reclusive eccentrics and a upon being invited inside for a drink and the house had no air conditioning. Which Mr. Leal's ideological spectacles handful of artists livng quasi-communal- conversation stammered that he'd love meant the air inside was as moist as a also lead him to see the appalling ly, none of whom was Ed Abbey), and to, if it weren't for the fact that he had to pelican's pouch nine months out of 10. destruction associated with industrial timidly asked whether he might consider catch the last train to White Plains. One day I pushed aside the clothes timberland owners in' western Montana allowing TucsonWeeklyNews to excerpt That's a New Yorker for you. A that hung in the closet to renew my as caused by the federal government, and the new book. Tucsonan like me probably would have acquaintance with those boots. I didn't not by these large corporations' pursuit Ray, who has since turned novelist just stood there on the sidewalk with his see them right away, but I did dance of short-term profits. himself, became a good friend of mouth open until he froze solid. Which back a step or two at the sight of twin It was, he says, the Forest Service Abbey's over the years, but back then we reminds me of the reason I started this columns of a cancerous-looking green that started c1earcutting alternate sec- were both just readers and admirers of piece: I've been East several times, usu- fuzz back behind some boxes I'd never tions of the Gallatin range and, since the his work and the independent spirit of ally to take work as a writer or editor unpacked. . Forest Service had already undercut the the cantankerous West his work embod- that paid better than the tradedoes here, It took a minute for the disgusting value of the private holdings for recre- ies. We were sure he'd say no, probably but it never worked out. No sooner had I truth to sink in. When it did I found I ation by offering recreation for free on forcefully, and so we were surprised arrived in Chicago or New York or Palm was already on the phone to the V-Haul public lands, Plum Creek had no choice when the.gentle voice on the other end Beach than I began making plans to go company, booking a truck for Tucson. but to cleareut, too. That is an amazing of the line invited us to meet its owner. home, back to Arizona, where I could reconstruction of reality! That's how we came face-to-face use my lungs and not the gills I felt o I would refer Mr. Leal to the docu- with the author of. Desert Solitaire and growing just under my ears. ments filed by Plum Creek with the Fed- The Monkey Wrench Gang after sun- It is so wet and warm in Tampa, John Bancroft is a freelance writer eral Securities and Exchange Commis- down on a summer evening. As we where I rode1oht five benighted Reagan in Tucson, Arizona.

J Save KEEP COMMENTING Trees A controversial plan to triple the aspen THEY SUPPORT GLACIER harvest in three western Colorado national We offer beautiful recycled paRer products. forests will be debated until Sept. 25, a A new, nonprofit group formed to support Gift wrap, greering cards, preservation of the natural and cultural month longer than planned. "We hope to give .. stationery, and many office, every individual ample opportunity to com- pnntIng, copy, and computer papers. In resources of Montana's Glacier National Park the U.S. people throwaway 100 billion will hold a dinner dance at the McDonald ment on the measure," says R.E. Greffenius, pounds of paper yearly. Help us change Lake Lodge in' the park. The Sept. 16 supervisor of the Grand Mesa. Uncompahgre .rhat. Send for our Sz-page color catalo~. fundraiser is a ftrst for Glacier National Park and Gunnison national forests. Offered as an . amendment to the 1983 forest plan, the pro- EARTH CARE PAPER INC. Associates. which plans to support programs Box 3335, Dept. 16 Madison, WI 53704 not otherwise funded. Those programs posal would increase aspen cutting from (608) 256-5522 include the park library, non-native plant con- about 1,000 to 3,000 acres each year for the next 10 years. "We've received in excess of CANTHEr BE SAVED? trol and preservation of historic park pho- The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is tographs. The group also plans to establish an 300 responses." says Matt Glasgow, a GMUG spokesman. "and that's a significant soliciting public comment on draft recovery educational trust to fund park interpretive plans for three endangered fish species. The programs. For more information. contact response." According to Glasgow, the forest Help... Superintendent Gil Lusk, Glacier National plan has been "heavily opposed." People are humpback chub, bonytail chub and Colorado stop the slaughter of Alaska's squawfish are all native to the slower, Park, West Glacier, MT 59936 (406/888- concerned about the-environmental conse- warmer and larger waters of the Colorado 5441). quences and "a great many write about the wolves, including aerial wolf hunts River Basin. But their habitat has been frag- threat to pocketbook issues, such as tourism," and "aerial trapping". Support mented or destroyed by dams, pollution, irri- ACCESS he adds. To obtain a copy of the draft amend- balanced wildlife policy and non- galion projects and competition with non- ed forest plan and draft supplemental envi- consumptive use of wildlife in ronmental impact statement, contact R.E. native species. The draft plan summarizes NEAT SHIFF Alaska. what is known about the biology of the fishes Greffenius, Forest Supervisor, GMUG DEVELOPMENT D1RECfOR: The Nature National Forests, 2250 Highway 50, Delta. and outlines recovery steps such as hatchery- Conservancy, a private nonprofit conserva- C081416 (303/874-7691). rearing, habitat improvement and reintroduc- tion organization, is seeking a responsible "Stop The Wolf tion to suitable waters. The

SMILING GULCH RANCH, LINCOLN, MONTANA: 205 acres, open and wooded, with streams and pond. 9,600 square foot Tamarack home, caretakers' home and new Ponderosa log building suitable for another home, bam or activity center. One mile from Big Blackfoot River. Aircraft hangar at lin- coln airport included. Excellent potential for development into business operation. $975,000 .. (M.A.!. appraised $1,165,000). Brochure and video available. Contact Park- ers: 5351 North Sterling Center Drive, West- REMOTE I. SOLAIlI!X lake Village, CA 91361, 818/889-3600 or POWer,NC FAX 818/991-2808. In Montana, 406/362- 649 Reming1on, Ft. Collins. CO 80524 • (303) 482-9507 4955 or FAX 406/362-4578. (2x17p) RM...._T I

Federal agents killed about 250,000 predators in 1987 ______~ryS~~Joonwn

For more than 60 years, very little has changed inside the federal Animal Damage Control division of the U.S. Department of Agriculture. ' Except for the telltale 1930s truck, it would be hard to tell which of the two photographs accompanying this article is the more recent. Both depict dead lions (or portions thereof); both were photographed in Arizona; and both demonstrate all too graphically the activities of the ADC, .past and present. The severed lion heads, however, were photographed onl y weeks ago. About five heads came from lions killed on the ranch of Eddie Lackner, the rancher who lost one of his federal grazing permits due to violations of laws regarding the reporting of bears and lions killed under the Arizona stock-killer laws. In fact, Lackner reportedly killed two of the lions himself. The very pleased expressions of the two unidentified ADC mencan be better understood when one realizes that their paychecks depended on their performance. The slogan "Bring them in, regardless of how" was no idle exhortation back in the 1920s and 1930s. The use of the slogan on every letter sent by their superiors to the ADC people in the field meant that the men had to get results or be fired, In the days' of the Great Depression, the loss of a steady job had a meaning that is unimaginable to. us today. Finally, these two men lived in very different times, when what they did was applauded by most The overall method by which, the ADC rated its employees in those long-vanished days relied heavily on a point system. While dead bears were acceptable as part of the total, wolves and lions earned more points. Bears were just too easy to kill, and also tended to cause fewer problems for cattle ranchers. Then, as now, keeping ran,chers happy was a vital part of keeping the ADC in business. The political power of thelivestock industry was the reason the ADC began and remains the chief reason that it still survives today. Today's ADC division of the USDA employs about 900 people nationwide whose. purpose, according to the 1931 Animal Damage Control Act, is "to promulgate the best methods of eradication, suppression or control" of the nation's predatory and other wild animals, and to "conduct campaigns for the Government trappers proudly show off their klll some 50 years ago destruction or control of such animals." Roughly 600 people are actually employees in the field. The Bush administration has asked for a 14 percent increase in ADC funding, from about $26 million in 1988 to more than $29 million in 1990. The tools of the trade range from the archaic steel leg-hold trap to helicoper gunships, and also may require skill in poisoning, snaring and ground shooting. This arsenal is directed against nearly all vertebrate wildlife species, including coyotes, bobcats, foxes, black bears, mountain lions, skunks, badgers, raccoons, ravens, owls, dogs, jackrabbits, cottontails, various rodents, blackbirds, grackles and even woodpeckers .• In 1987 (the latest year for which statistics are ' available), the ADC killed nearly 250,000 animals in 14 western states, according to its own annual reports. This total does not include the hundreds of thousands of birds such as grackles and blackbirds killed on their roosts in the East. ' The roots of the ADC go back to 1890, when federal involvementfirst began. First organized as a part of the V.S. Biological Survey, it was known as the Predator and Rodent Control Agency until passage of the 1931 act. The sale reason for the ADC's original existence was the almost-constant pressure of Western ranchers for governmental hclp in killing wolves, mountain lions and grizzly bears. When ranchers finally began to pay. for the formerly free forage on the federal lands, the fact of that minuscule fee (5 cents per cow in the early 1900s) was used as another justification for federal expenditures on their behalf. From 1931 to 1985, the ADC was under the Department of the Interior and a part of the V.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, the same agency that administers our National Wildlife Refuges and the Endangered Species programs. In late 1985, the entire ADC operation was transferred by Congress to the (Continued on page 15) These lions were recently killed In Arizona LRT V2

High Country News - September 11, 1989-15

- We should turnwilderness war into search for consensus

______--'by Dick Carter 3.7 million acres, and the Utah Wilderness Association proposed 3.8 million acres. Wayne Owens, Utah's second congressional With the filing of bills and recommendations, the district representative, said, "Let the debate begin." stage is set for the ultimate battle: the struggle to His counterpart from the first district, Rep. Jim convince Congress to pass a bill, thereby creating Hansen, responded, "Let the wild rumpus start," winners and losers. It is a battle that many expect to Both were talking of wilderness. Owens is the go on for years, and it will further divide a state that is author of a 5.l-million-acre Utah BLM wilderness already badly divided. This raises the question: Is bill, HR 1500. Hansen has written HR 1501, a 1.4- there an alternati ve to yet another protracted and million-acre bill. Owens' district, largely the metro bloody political struggle over the management of Salt Lake area, doesn't contain a single proposed public land in Utah? BLM wilderness area although it has many of the The automatic answer from both sides is a loud state's wilderness advocates. Hansen's district "no.' And that raises a second question: What is so contains fewer wilderness advocates but dozens of difficult about seeking consensus? Alternately, what is proposed wildernesses. so attractive about a no-holds-barred fight? The BLM wilderness triggers great emotion in Utah. present fighting, after all, will do little or nothing to And it should. Although dotted with a few scattered educate and alter the fundamental problem national parks, the Colorado Plateau and Great Basin surrounding resources - that of always looking at represent an unmatched physical landform, carved by natural resources as something to be consumed. wind and rain, lifted, dropped and scorched. The So long as the political and financial needs of result is canyons and cliffs, bridges and arches, fins both wilderness opponents and proponents dictate the and mesas, colored red, yellow, buff and purple, all starting point, the debate or rumpus will always seek changing daily with the rising and setting of the sun justification of these positions, rather than discussions and seasonally with its changing height in the sky. It is and then resolution of the real interests surrounding a landscape found nowhere else on earth. . wilderness designation. Both sides seek to coerce DuneM~tCanyon.Ubh After a great deal of pushing and pulling through rather than understand. Neither side appears to have the late 1970s, the Bureau of Land Management, an interest in setting in motion the personal and nothing magical about Owens' 5-million-acre bill or which controls the public lands in question, identified cultural changes that must occur if wilderness is to the BLM's 1.9-million-acre recommendation. The 3.2 million acres of wilderness study areas and made a have any value. need is for pursuit of the real issues, and reasonable 1.9-million-acre preliminary recommendation. So long as BLM wilderness is pursued as the final discussion. In response, the Utah Wilderness Association, statement on environmental quality, Right versus I know lofty talk about a search for common joined by other environmental organizations, filed and Wrong, Purity versus Impurity, we guarantee islands ground seems meaningless when opponents of won the largest-ever BLM wilderness appealliefore of wilderness surrounded by masses of development. wilderness, such as the Multiple Use Coalition, ' the Interior Board of Land Appeals in the early 1980s. Fifty years from now, we may see wilderness areas as continue to denigrate wilderness, wilderness The victory enlarged the wilderness study area monuments to our insensitivity to larger issues. rather advocates and wilderness users. Their absurd "no, no, acreage by over 600,000 acres. than, as we now like to think, monuments to our no" must end because it lacks political and ecological With the study and appeals past, the BLM and vision. _ substance. It will definitely end when the land is other players assumed their positions. The BLM _ Rather than see wilderness as an end, we should destroyed and non-productive for consumptive or non- recommended to Congress that it designate 1.9 million see it almost as a practice, arena. For if we can't solve consumptive uses. Our job is to help end the stand-off acres. Owens' and Hansen's bills were separated by wilderness issues with some degree of consensus" long before then. I ~-.-. ,-~-_._-_.'-' '-success, respect-ani! dignity.rthen the other, larger Both- sides can work toward consensus by asking issues we are facing will not be solved either. basic questions. From the environmental side, we Because we have positioned wilderness as a should look up from 0Uf headlong rush for wilderness " moral struggle, pitting environmentalists versus non- and ask: Of what value would this wilderness be? Killing .... environmentalists (there are variations on this within After all, we have been extraordinarily successful in [Continued from page 14) the environmental community - the larger the creating wilderness without doing much to stop the ,/ wilderness recommendation, the purer the degradation of the environment. USDA, where ADC's overzealousness on behalf of environmentalist), the debate generates heat and The anti-wilderness side should ask: Why are we ranchers and farmers would be more warmly received. questionable wilderness boundaries. Of all the values reflexively against wilderness? Have the mining and Conservationists, while concerned about the wilderness has taught, communication is not one of milling and clearcutting and overgrazing of the past transfer, generally offered little resistance. Some even them. century - a period when environmentalism barely supported it, believing that the Fish and Wildlife Implicit in both wilderness bills is the assumption existed in southern Utah - brought us wealth, stable Service would be more likely to adopt a much tougher that a maximum' or minimum wilderness bill will be and prosperous communities, or even a financially enforcement stance if the ADC were no longer under shoved through Congress, with the possible tradeoff comfortable life for more than a few years at a time? its umbrella. that all other lands will be subject to development. We Or has it, instead, brought us financial and social Unlike many other federal bureaucracies, the experienced this in the 1984 Utah Wilderness Act, instability, a flow of wealth out of the region and ADC has done its.job well. Due to its single-minded which designated Forest Service wilderness. That is exhausted and damaged land? efforts, we no longer have either wolves or grizzly because the Forest Service process pursued wilderness At the base of environmentalists' search for more bears left in Arizona or in the great majority of the in the same manner that has been set in motion for the wilderness, and for protection of land that doesn't fit West. Both are now listed as endangered. When the rumpus/debate surrounding BLM wilderness. the wilderness formula, is our belief that protection of ApC poisoned prairie dogs, it also added the black- Utah is not alone. Statewide wilderness bills the land and its resources are necessary for a full and footed ferret to the endangered-species list. If the lion harbor identical release language emphasizing the rich life, and now perhaps even for survival. had eaten carrion, and therefore been vulnerable to continued need for roadless area protection and If that is true, we must also believe that other poisoning, it too would now be gone from the West. wilderness reconsideration in the future. Yet many of . people - both in Utah and beyond - will soon come As incredible as it seems today, both grizzly bears these bills exited Congress with uniform to realize the importance of broad protection of land and Mexican wolves were common in eastern Arizona dissatisfaction, prompting a call on the one hand for and its resources. Today we see that movement and western New Mexico just after the Civil War. "no more wilderness" and on the other to designate clearly in Utah. While the rest of the West embraced During that mythical period of what has become valuable wildlands that were left out of the first round. wilderness as a goal years ago, Utah, with its high known as the "winning of the West," a few people The problem is that the wilderness bills have been birth rate and its development culture, resisted trying to make the world safe for cows and sheep burdened with too much weight. Wilderness should be wilderness. Now the public perception is shifting. The made the decision for all of us that we would never only one issue, but it has become an icon, and birth rate is dropping and public sentiment, as see or hear a Mexican wolf in the wild, or watch a therefore it is the entire debate. Instead of the tool, it expressed in polls, is snongly pro-wilderness. grizzly bear chase fish in the Santa Cruz River near is the end. The temptation is to see these trends as providing Nogales. By the 1930s, both species were finished in We treat wilderness as an end even though we an opportunity to "roll" our opponents - to grab off a Arizona and New Mexico. know that after its designation, wildlife is still bigger chunk of wilderness in, let's say, 1993, than we Today, nearly all of us place a very high value on threatened, watersheds are still hammered by too can get today. all wildlife, both predators and prey. It is now up to us many sheep or cattle and hillsides are denuded by off- But there is an alternative. Our opponents can see - to ensure that we do not allow ranchers and the ADC road vehicles. That is because some of the most the shifts as well as we can. What if, instead of to make decisions for our own descendants that they' critical watersheds, sonie of the most critical wildlife awaiting our rise to power, we use this intermediate, will never have a chance to see lions and black bears. habitat and some of the most sensitive ecosystems changing time to create a common ground. If we do not break the stranglehold of the rancher over don't even qualify as wilderness. Yet they need our Wouldn't it be better to have a working our wildlife and our' public lands, such a future could attention as much or more than the most beautiful and relationship than continuous war, with the land held - well come to pass. isolated mountain range or desert setting. hostage? If we are to achieve fundamental change in our o collective view of the land, we must recognize that it o is not an "us versus them" matter. It should be obvious Steve Johnson is the Southwest representative of by now that coercing othersto alter their value system Dick Carter is coordinator of the Utah Wilderness Defenders of Wildlife. doesn't work. It should also be obvious that there is Association. V2

~ Let's share the wolf risk with ranchers

_-' -bbyHank Fischer • Back in frontier days, entertainment consisted of placing a bear and a buffalo in the same arena and watching the ensuing fracas. Sometimes in the West it seems we engage in similar sport, only instead of hears and bison, conservationists and ranchers are the combatants. The current battle over restoring wolves to the Yellowstone National Park area provides a case in point. The only common ground ranchers and conservationists seem to he finding is the dirt they're' throwing at one another. "We need wolves like we need another drought," say ranchers, reinforcing many environmentalists,' view that livestock producers are selfish and hate wildlife. "Wolves should he restored to the Yellowstone area and cows should he removed," say some wildlife supporters, reaffirming many ranchers' view that environmentalists are selfish aod hate people. Meanwhile, the public' and. press seem mesmerized by this spectacle -of ranchers and conservationists whacking and hacking at one another, drawn to the tiresome conflict the way some people "We call this suppfy-slde environmental- are drawn to car crashes. A poster by Montana artist Monte Dolack Ism," says Defender's Hank Fischer. "The Now wouldn't you think that a society smart has been commissioned by Defenders of Is enough to put men on, the moon could figure out how Wildlife to belp create a fund to pay ranch- Idea to use our private resources to pay to restore wolves to Yellowstone without causing ers for livestock killed by wolves In the for environmental solutions Instead of wait- major problems? Of course. And the sensible way 10 Northern Rockies, Ing for the government or someone else to do begin solving problems associated with, returning Dolack says his rendering of a mother wolf something." wolves to Yellowstone is.to start looking at those and her cubs, set against a nighttime Yel- So far the group has raised $42,000of the $100,000 they think is needed for the pro- problems one at a time and 'hegin proposing solutions. lowstone setting, will not only help raise gram. The "Restoring the Wolf to Yellow- So let's put the arguing aside for a moment andtry. money for the fund but also ralse people's stone National Park" poster can be ordered that approach. consciousness about the often maligned ani- for $25 from Defenders of Wildlife, 1244 Most people would agree that the single most mal 19th S1.NW, Washington, D.C.,20036. effective argument against wolf restoration in Yellowstone and other parts of the Northern Rockies has been that w~lves might cause economic hardship of these livestock loss statistics we throw.around? second, it's probably cheaper for us to pay for for livestock producers. And more to the point, who pays the bills if wc're livestock losses outright than to pay peopie' to ~ii . . While we conservationists can sit back with our wrong? around for years and argue about just how significant livestock-loss statistics and argue till the cows come, If we're sincerely convinced that livestock losses these losses are or aren't going to be. home (or dqn't come home) that industry-wide losses 10wolves will be low, if we really believe the opinion Paying for the losses allows both groups to win. to wolves are only a fraction of one percent, we surveys that tell us we have overwhelming public Conservationists get wolves back in Yellowstone, and cannot deny that some losses will occur. support for Yellowstone wolf restoration, then why the livestock industry is protected from economic We could jaw with the livestock industry about all not put our money where our mouths are and simply hardship. The idea is to use our resources to pay for these livestock- loss studies and statistics and what pay for verified losses? environmental solutions rather than waiting for the they really mean for the next decade without making After all, it's just good common sense - and government or someone else to do something. We're an inch of progress toward getting a wolf track back in smart politics - to shift any economic burden putting our money on the wolf. ' Yellowstone. Trying 10 convince ranchers that their associated with wolf recovery away' from individual' losses won't really he that large simply doesn't seem livestock producers and onto the willing shoulders of o like an inspired strategy. We'd have hetter luck trying the millions of wolf supporters all over the nation. 10 persuade a prairie dog 10climb a tree. And if it's the money that concerns people, there Hank Fischer is Northern Rockies field But let's look at this issue from a different are two answers. First, is it fair to ask someone else to representative for Defenders of Wildlife in Missoula. perspective. How confident are we wildlife supporters carry a load we wouldn't carry ourselves? And Montana. r.------~ LETTERS options is a discussion that has just SUPPORTS TED TURNER begun. Traditional agricultural economies centered around livestock and Dear HeN, in the case of the Flying D, timber stand' liquidation can be appropriately woven The purchase of the 11O,OOO-acre into the ecosystem fabric through careful Flying D Ranch southwest of Bozeman, management. Mont., by Ted Turner (HCN. 8/14/89), This, unfortunately" is not often the has created lots of attention and some case. Sale of private land often implies a controversy. new or more intensive use. However, we The matter of public access to pub- do breathe easier when the conversion of lic lands through peripheral private hold- agricultural holdings is accomplished, KaIparowits Plateau, Utah ings is controversial throughout the not for subdivisions, ski areas, or dense- West. Whenever ownership changes" or pack stocking of cows, but rather in Send your student a biweekly message public concern is expressed about the recognition of the biologic integrity of question of access through 'private land, an area. from home, for only SI8/year it is proper 10examine the issue. The acknowledgement of the Flying NAME _ However, in this case, the protection D property as a preserve and sanctuary of a key wildlife sanctuaryis paramount should make the matter of public access ADDRESS -'- _ and cause for support from the entire less important in this case. We hope that environmental community. Ted Turner is other private holdings will undergo such seeking to return biologic integrity to a' conversion when appropriate. CITY STATE ZIP __ ....,... portion of the greater Yellowstone $18/year for first-time student subscriptions . ecosystem that has, in the past. been Don Bachman $24/year for individuals; and public or schoo/libraries managed for commodity production by Bozeman, Montana $34/year for businesses, government agencies or other institutions its absentee".I owners. Mail to; HCN, Box 1090, Paonia, CO 81428 " I The integration of private land use The writer is program' assistant for ______"1"'"--~-~-\-_~,_< , .J ., .s!I"~~t:g,i~~ril)~.~