Looking back over the past
century, the greatest shortcoming of the conservation movement in
the American West has been its near-total failure to devise a
strategy for privately owned land in the region.
By any
yardstick — watershed acres, animal species, ecological
processes — conservation success on private land has been
small. While many environmentalists correctly note that half of the
West is publicly owned and thus held in trust for the public good,
they rarely mention the other part of that equation: Half of the
West is in private hands.
This is significant because, as
many researchers have written, private lands contain the most
productive soils, are located at lower elevations and often include
key riparian areas. Wildlife biologist Rick Knight, who teaches at
Colorado State University, put it this way: “We will not be able to
sustain native biodiversity in the Mountain West by relying merely
on protected areas. Future conservation efforts to protect this
region’s natural heritage will require closer attention being
paid to the role of private lands.”
But how? The tactics
of demonization, litigation, regulation and pressure politics may
be effective on public lands — though to a diminishing degree
these days — but they’re essentially useless on private
land.
They won’t work because they’re tools
of coercion. They’re useful to right a wrong or quick-fix a
crisis, but ineffective for chronic afflictions, such as the slow
decline of biological diversity. Our ecological crisis is really a
social crisis, and you don’t change human behavior with a
hammer.
Until conservationists can conceive of the region
as one West — indivisible in the things that matter, such as
water, wildlife, soil, community and the common good, and develop
strategies that work evenly and fairly, the ecological trend will
continue downward.
A few years ago, I was part of a panel
discussion in Silver City, N.M., that focused on livestock and
native plants. On the panel with me was a vigorous local
environmentalist who drew a sharp line in the sand when it came to
cows. I’d cited a statistic that over 100 million acres of
private land in the West are owned by ranchers, and most need the
grazing provided by public lands to stay profitable.
I
turned to the activist and asked: “If you’re successful in
booting ranchers off public lands, what happens to all that private
land? Who’s going to keep it from being sold to subdividers?”
The environmentalist responded by saying his concern was
for public land, and he was only interested in creating “refugia”
for native plants and animals.
His comment upset the
Forest Service biologist at the other end of the panel. “What good
is a refuge if it’s also a biological desert?” he asked,
hotly. “Because that’s what’s happening in the Gila
Wilderness.”
He went on to say that the suppression of
fire and other natural agents of ecological disturbance, including,
under the right conditions, animal impact, had contributed to
ecological stagnation in the wilderness.
Right there, I
realized, was the heart of the matter. Do we continue to divide the
West into two parts based on philosophical ideals — such as
whether we have a public or a private “right” to something on the
land — or do we talk about crossing boundaries and working
collaboratively?
Efforts to sequester land by buying it
are laudable, but there isn’t enough money to do the job; not
even enough for the purchase of conservation easements. Prices also
keep rising, almost literally by the minute. One response to the
dilemma of limited funds has been to target “the last best places.”
It’s been a useful strategy. The Conservation Fund, for
example, has passed the 4-million-acre mark nationwide, in terms of
protected land.
It only took them 19 years.
Many land-buying organizations have recently turned to
collaborative, community-based projects to widen the conservation
impact across threatened landscapes. At the same time, other
conservation organizations, such as Defenders of Wildlife and
Environmental Defense, offer incentive programs and other tools to
encourage better land use among private landowners.
But
more than anything, environmentalists need to make peace with
ranchers and other landowners. And everyone needs to begin a
dialogue about the health of the land and economic opportunity,
regardless of where the fences may go.
As John Maynard
Keynes said, “The difficulty lies not in new ideas, but in escaping
from the old ones.”
Courtney White is a
contributor to Writers on the Range, a service of High
Country News (hcn.org). In Santa Fe, New Mexico, he is
executive director of the Quivira Coalition, whose fourth annual
conference, “Half public, half private, one West,” takes place Jan.
13-15 in Albuquerque.
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