Dear HCN,
I don’t know how many
times I’ve read or heard that the solution to the differences
between environmentalists and ranchers is “cooperation.” Lovely
word, cooperation. Unfortunately, it seems to mean different things
to different people. To the rancher, it’s “leave us alone to do our
thing.” To most environmentalists, it means reducing the number of
livestock to what the land can support. Most ranchers believe
there’s nothing wrong with rangelands that wouldn’t be solved by
more rain. Chronic optimists, they expect those rains to come every
year, and “doing their thing” means stocking the ranges in
expectation that those rains, which never seem to come in
sufficient quantity to satisfy ranchers, will somehow materialize
for sure “this year.” How is cooperation going to resolve these two
contradictory yet firmly held viewpoints?
Jon
Christensen’s report on the 17th annual Cowboy Poetry Gathering
(HCN, 4/23/01: An environmentalist in the heart of cowboy culture)
was another paean to cooperation. It failed miserably to present
grazing critics’ side of the issue. The keynote speaker, a Nevada
buckaroo (“cowboy” in all other states!) accused a “small faction
of people” for the fact that today there are “40 percent fewer
cattle in the Great Basin region than there was in 1984.” Not once
in Christensen’s page-length article is there any mention of
overgrazing. In fact, in the 50 years I’ve lived and worked (33
years with Arizona Game and Fish) never have I known of a rancher
admitting there was such a thing as overgrazing. Not, that is,
until the elk herd in this state built up and they had an
opportunity to accuse the elk of overgrazing. Cooperation will work
to the satisfaction of public-land ranchers only if grazing critics
throw in the towel (which I’m confident they won’t do) and continue
to allow the rancher-Forest Service-Bureau of Land
Management-Senate coalition to do as they please on our public
lands.
Steve
Gallizioli
Fountain Hills, Arizona
The writer is a retired chief of the Wildlife
Management Division, Arizona Game and Fish
Department.
This article appeared in the print edition of the magazine with the headline Cooperation and other shibboleths.
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