The Next West’s essayists tell us that
natural-resource management agencies have failed to protect either
public lands or local communities from the damage done by
extractive industries; what’s more, Western communities still
remain dependent on federal handouts.
But the
writers do more than carp. Editors Donald Snow and John Baden also
supply alternatives – a West where large government is replaced by
local government, where responsibility for public lands is vested
in those who live closest to these lands, where markets replace the
political allocation of natural resources, and where the
one-size-fits-all approach to land management is replaced by local
experiments. In other words, they argue for a “Sagebrush Rebellion,
Done Right.”
There is much to applaud. Stephen
Bodio eulogizes the people and places of a high, raw valley in New
Mexico, where the inhabitants and the land get on well together.
Marc Sagoff contrasts “the dead hand of federal bureaucracy” with
the “new resource economics,” in which communities will practice
stewardship of public lands while being held responsible for the
outcomes of their choices.
A jarring note is the
universal condemnation of land-management agencies. The writers
ignore the fact that those agencies are encumbered by legislation,
are attacked from all sides and are being downsized. There are good
people in natural resource agencies who are forging partnerships,
serving as catalysts and promoting cooperation. Doing away with the
agencies will no more promote land stewardship than will ignoring
the opinions of diverse constituencies who live far from the public
lands.
The Next West: Public Lands, Community,
and Economy in the American West, John A. Baden and Donald Snow,
eds. 1997. Gallatin Institute and Island Press, California. –
Richard L. Knight
Richard L.
Knight teaches wildlife conservation at Colorado State
University.
This article appeared in the print edition of the magazine with the headline A Better West?.
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