In recent months, High Country
News has spilled a lot of ink covering the Bush
administration’s policies for the public lands — and
the controversies swirling around them. At the center of that storm
is Bush’s secretary of the Interior, Gale Norton. Norton is
charged with overseeing the National Park Service, the Bureau of
Land Management, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and other
agencies that control some 500 million acres in the United States.
Norton is clearly passionate about some of the same
things that earned President Clinton’s Interior secretary,
Bruce Babbitt, his reputation as an on-the-ground problem solver.
She champions local decision-making through her “Four C’s”
credo: “Communication, consultation and cooperation, all in the
service of conservation.” Her department has worked to protect
endangered species habitat on private land.
But Norton
also marks a major shift for Interior. The Clinton administration
won praise from environmentalists for creating national monuments
and providing temporary protection for proposed wilderness areas;
the Bush administration is focused on pleasing the oil, gas, timber
and ranching industries, from which many of its top officials are
drawn. Babbitt used environmental laws such as the Endangered
Species Act and the Antiquities Act to bring industry to the
negotiating table; Norton has been an outspoken opponent of
government regulation, and instead looks for economic incentives
for conservation.
Recently, HCN Intern Alex Pasquariello
caught up with Norton while she was touring Rocky Flats, a nuclear
arsenal-turned wildlife refuge on the outskirts of Denver.
HCN: Tell us about some conservation
efforts taking place in the West based on the “Four C’s”
where you’ve played a key role.
Norton: Well, that’s a good cue for us
showing how we’re putting our money where our mouth is. We
have been working to create partnerships for conservation through a
number of different programs. We have vastly increased the amount
of funding that is available for conservation partnerships. In
2005, the president’s budget proposes over a half billion
(dollars) in cooperative conservation programs …
One that … we created (is) based on one that Gov. Bush
created in Texas. We actually have two similar programs, so you
might see it referred to in a couple of different ways — the
Private Stewardship Grant Program and the Land Owner Incentive
Program — and together, I think, we refer to them as the
Species Protection Partnership Program. Both projects together are
designed to voluntarily enhance habitat for endangered, threatened
or at-risk species. Those are very exciting. These projects get
people enthused about endangered species. And as we all know,
enthusiasm is not the way landowners usually react to finding out
they have endangered species on their property.
HCN: Are there some specific projects you could
steer me towards?
Norton:
There’s … the mountain plover project we have out here
in Colorado. It involves the Colorado Division of Wildlife, the
Colorado Farm Bureau, the Audubon Society, the U.S. Geological
Survey and the Fish and Wildlife Service. Mountain plovers like to
nest in plowed ground, and obviously, that is hazardous to their
health when tractors start coming through. But as long as you
don’t disturb the nest, the plovers continue to like that
habitat, even as it’s cultivated.
So, the agreement
is that farmers call in 72 hours before they start farming or plow
a field. The Audubon Society or another partner sends out a
biologist to find the nesting spots, and marks those. Then, when
the farmer goes out to plow, he avoids 10 feet around those sites.
That protects the birds, allows the farmer to earn a livelihood,
and works well for all the partners. The biologists are monitoring
it to make sure it works for the plover, but the initial
indications have been very good.
HCN:
What causes some partnerships to work, and some to fail? For
instance, the Bitterroot grizzly bear reintroduction project that
was duked out with all sorts of parties in Idaho and Montana
— It seemed like all the Four C’s were in line, but the
Interior Department struck it down.
Norton: Predators make it much more difficult to
find consensus. It’s a lot easier to agree about birds and
plants than about animals that endanger people and livestock
… We’re learning with our experience with wolves in
Montana, Idaho and Wyoming how difficult it is to deal with the
major predators. Hopefully, we will be able to learn from that
experience. We’ve had to tell Wyoming that their regulatory
programs are not sufficient to take the wolves off the endangered
list.
HCN: A project that sparked a
lot of debate here in Colorado is the Roan Plateau. In 2001, the
Roan was identified by President Bush as one of the top 10 priority
areas for energy development. As the management plan was being
debated … all five city councils in the county, environmental
groups, hunting organizations and ranchers endorsed Alternative F.
(Alternative F would have allowed energy companies to drill along
the base of the plateau, but not on top; it also would have
established 22,000 acres of wilderness study areas.) But
Alternative F was eliminated as an option by Interior. What
happened with Alternative F, and where does the Roan Plateau
project stand right now?
Norton: That
project is currently being internally analyzed, and we are looking
at options for that, and we anticipate that soon we can come out
with some alternatives that allow the project to move forward and
satisfy local needs.
HCN: By the
BLM’s own estimates, 40 percent of the plateau’s public
acreage is already open to energy development. What do you
anticipate the increase will be?
Norton: Wait and see … Now, you have to
remember that it was a petroleum reserve.
HCN: Yes, it was oil shale in the late
’70s — but that industry came and went pretty quickly,
leaving that community busted. That’s why the public process
has been so involved. How will that be accounted for in these
upcoming decisions?
Norton: It really
is premature for us to be talking about how this is going to turn
out. But on the energy development front, we have worked with
several conservation organizations, and brought together CEOs of
energy companies and land managers to talk about “best management
practices” — about how to balance the energy needs with
habitat protection and other environmental aspects of energy
development. These are applicable to any BLM management, not just
the Roan Plateau.
HCN: Has energy
development moved to the forefront of the Interior’s
priorities?
Norton: No, we have
multiple-use responsibilities. We do have serious energy needs for
the country. We are aware that natural gas is especially in demand
because of its air quality benefits. Ninety percent of new power
plants have been natural gas powered. We want the natural gas
because it’s beneficial, and we need someplace to get it. We
work within that reality.
Our process is a land-use
planning process. We have to look at each individual area to see
what makes sense for that area. We look at areas that are
appropriate for recreation, wildlife, different areas that may be
appropriate for energy activities. We ideally balance all of those
things. Our responsibility for BLM lands is multiple-use, meaning a
variety of needs and uses.
HCN: So
what happened in Utah with your settlement (with then-Gov. Mike
Leavitt) that stripped 2.6 million acres of “wilderness inventory
areas” of wilderness protection, and opened them up to energy
development? The public identifies wilderness inventory areas
— it doesn’t fit into the Four C’s doctrine?
Norton: First of all, we start with
the legal reality that Congress reserved for itself the right to
create wilderness areas. We think that it is appropriate to look at
preserving natural areas as one aspect of our land-use planning
process: We looked at some (areas in Utah) that are adjacent to
existing oil and gas activities, that are not visible from
recreation use areas, that don’t have exceptional values, and
have made those available for leasing. We have looked at other
areas and decided they should not be available for oil and gas
leasing. And so our local land managers have been looking at each
individual area, and, through the public involvement process, (are)
deciding what’s appropriate.
HCN: After two years of work, volunteer members
of the Owyhee Initiative developed a proposal to protect 510,000
acres of wilderness. The process really brought together ranchers
and environmentalists. Are you going to support the proposal if
they bring it to you?
Norton: The only
thing I’ve seen so far are news articles, but I find it
really encouraging. I think getting people of different views
together on a local level to hash out how wilderness should be
designated is the right way to do it. This is the type of process I
strongly support …
Frankly, as I sit here in Colorado,
I reminisce about my days here working with Sen. Hank Brown on
wilderness legislation … By a lot of painstaking work, lots
of people being involved and evaluating each individual location,
we reached a broad consensus that allowed wilderness designations
to occur throughout Colorado.
HCN: In
the 1980s, you worked for the Mountain States Legal Foundation
under James Watt, and later you worked under him in the Interior
Department. His outspoken agenda was, “Mine more, drill more, cut
more timber.” Concerning the current administration’s
policies, he’s been quoted as saying, “Twenty years later, it
sounds as if they’ve just dusted off the old work.” Is this
true, and if not, how is your agenda different than James
Watt’s?
Norton: What’s
near and dear to my heart is cooperative conservation. I believe
strongly that we need to get beyond rhetoric — beyond
industry and environmentalists fighting with each other — and
seriously solve problems. I think the greatest challenge in
environmentalism, and the most rewarding challenge, is trying to
figure out how humans can meet their needs while protecting the
environment. Human beings are going to be relying on natural
resources for a long time … If you just sit back and
criticize any use of resources, that’s forgetting that you
need to find the resources for humanity.
Editor’s Note: For the full transcript of HCN’s
interview with Gale Norton, visit (HCN, 5/24/04: The Complete Gale
Norton Interview). HCN is particularly interested in hearing from
readers who have on-the-ground experiences with the successes and
failures of Gale Norton’s four-C’s of cooperative conservation.
Drop us an email at editor@hcn.org with Gale Norton in the subject
line.
The interviewer is a former HCN
intern who now reports for the Douglas County
News-Press in Castle Rock, Colorado.
This article appeared in the print edition of the magazine with the headline A champion of ‘cooperative conservation’: Interior Secretary Gale Norton.
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