Dear HCN,
I was glad to see your
coverage of the crisis at Petroglyph National Monument in
Albuquerque (HCN, 10/25/99). While in New Mexico three years ago, I
spent a day exploring that monument. With its eloquent, ageless
images, it impressed me as a treasure of transcendent value,
affording civilization a new and better way to address spiritual
and community needs in the 21st century. So it saddened me while in
Albuquerque to read a statement attributed to the monument
superintendent, Judith Cordova: “You can’t please everyone. We are
not a rural area. We are an urban area.” That did not ring true,
coming from the guardian of such a choice, living
cathedral.
Consequently, on returning home, I
wrote for clarification to John Cook, the Southwest regional
director of the National Park Service. I hoped he would agree that
personnel of his agency are not mandated to please everyone, but to
do their best to protect the treasures in their trust. It grieved
me when the letter I received from Mr. Cook reiterated the same old
political pap about “conflicting public ideas’ and “appropriate
balance” between preservation and use. No, Petroglyph National
Monument should not be administered as an urban recreation area for
recreationists on bikes and horses, nor “balanced appropriately”
with a six-lane highway. To the contrary, the monument should be
nurtured as a sacred site. The real challenge as I see it is not
whether to build the proposed road, nor what kind of recreation to
foster at the monument, but how to look at the landscape with a
point of view that rises above the ordinary into the higher order
of ethics and spirituality.
I believe that Dave
Simon of the National Parks and Conservation Association was
correct when he said that if the monument superintendent was in the
private sector she would have been fired a long time ago. I hope
that NPCA and other organizations will press the issue and continue
to lend support to Ike Eastvold, president of Friends of the
Petroglyphs, in his courageous battle to protect the
site.
Michael
Frome
Bellingham,
Washington
Michael Frome,
retired from Western Washington University but still teaching, is
the author of Battle for the Wilderness and Green Ink: An
Introduction to Environmental
Journalism.
This article appeared in the print edition of the magazine with the headline ‘Appropriate balance’ not pertinent at Petroglyph.
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