RUMINATING ON COWS
I've always had a love/hate relationship with cows. I've cursed them loudly and with extreme prejudice when they turned my favorite mountain meadow, Nasty Flat, into a barren cow-pie strewn wasteland--a devastating scene perhaps more worthy of the place name.
But then...they taste so good.
On many an occasion I've inched my way through a herd of these stupid beasts on some highway as their cowboy masters move them to summer range or winter range or to the feedlot and the hammer and hook and I wonder if I could ever grow accustomed to a steady stream of green, smelly, fly-infested shit running down my flanks.
But then...have you ever seen lovelier eyelashes than those adorning a Hereford cow? If any of my ex-girlfriends had been able (or willing) to bat eyelashes like that at me, who knows where those relationships might have gone.
When I see a herd of those heavy-set ungulates trampling yet another field or meadow, I am appalled at the damage.
But then...when I see yet another overgrazed field turned into a condo development, I ask myself---is a burned out meadow as bad as this? And when I see that same herd of Black Angus or Herefords, I also am struck with an instantaneous case of Bovolexia, an illness that actually brings me pleasure and satisfaction, and a sense of communication with these dumb animals.
Bovolexia, you see, is an irresistible urge to moo when you see cows in a field. Without fail, as I drive along some rural highway, the sight of a cow forces me to roll down my window, hang my head into the wind and moo as convincingly as I know how to. Sometimes I moo forcefully and lustily with a bullish spirit; other times my moos are plaintive and melancholy, as a poor steer might feel as he/it looks at all those heifers and wonders why he isn't interested.
But when they respond to my call and look up and acknowledge my moos, it pleases me somehow.
I can lose patience with ranchers who abuse and destroy the very land they make a living from, but I'm careful not to paint all ranchers with the same broad stroke. Ranchers run the spectrum like everyone else. If someone, for instance, tried to tell me that rancher Heidi Redd didn't understand the heart and soul of the American West, I'd punch them in the nose. Heidi has lived most of a life at Dugout Ranch in San Juan County, Utah and I'm glad she's there.
And so, as we prepared this issue on public lands grazing and ranching in the American West, I went into it with mixed feelings. I've been told repeatedly that cows are destroying the West; yet my heart doesn't seem to be totally committed to getting rid of them. I've been reminded that the Cowboy Myth is just that, but then I wonder, what's wrong with a myth? Isn't that what we need more of these days? What is it with this cynical 21st Century culture of ours that makes us want to tear our myths and heroes apart? I'm not ready to abandon Gene Autrey and Roy Rogers...not quite yet. Please.
But beyond my irrational defense of the cowboy and his cow, I also find a more practical side to my emotions. It's the reality of a commodity-driven society and economy, where everything must have a dollar value, where everything must be marketed and sold and everything must show a comfortable profit.
Back in "the good old days," twenty years ago, Western land issues seemed much easier to define--much more black and white. Perhaps it was my youth getting in the way, but many of us google-eyed enviros thought that if cattle were removed from public allotments, those over-grazed lands would simply restore themselves and everything would be really pretty again.
We didn't give much thought to the ranchers, or to the communities that were built upon ranching, or what would happen to the ranches themselves---the century old homes and barns tucked under ancient cottonwood trees, the alfalfa fields in the valleys that are as much a part of the Western landscape as the mountains that often rise above them.
Environmentalists didn't consider then, and many don't care now, what the fate of the Rural West might be if public lands ranching was to be eliminated. In fact, for many urban enviros, eliminating the Rural West is really a key strategy, in their minds, to preserving it. I think that strategy has some flaws.
For more than a decade, environmentalists have embraced tourism and recreation as a viable and clean alternative to the kinds of traditional extractive industries, including ranching, that have always been our mortal enemies. And of course, tourism has always been a key component in many small-town economies. As it should be.
It's the runaway tourism/growth/expansion of towns like Moab that should cause all of us to take notice and give pause---to re-think all of this. Exploding tourist numbers transform a community, shift the emphasis of the town away from the people who live there and toward the tourists who don't. Moab doesn't exist for its citizens; it's there, in fact, for high dollar transients. And it rarely benefits the small-town residents that were there during the tough times; it's the new arrivals with the capital to invest that flourish.
But it does more than that; resource damage has skyrocketed from recreational use, both motorized and non-motorized. And agricultural lands are giving way at an alarming rate to housing developments. Moab's Chamber of Commerce promoted an ad campaign a decade ago that proclaimed, "You've come to play...why not stay." The effort was an enormous success. Most of Spanish Valley, once a bucolic, laid-back mish-mash of alfalfa fields, cow pastures, junk cars and funky homes is rapidly vanishing in a sea of condo developments and faux adobe second homes. Can anyone really look me in the eye and tell me that Rim Village is more aesthetically pleasing to the eye than the alfalfa field it replaced?
And out of that shift comes a vital question for all environmentalists. When we talk about highest and best use of a piece of land, just what exactly do we mean, particularly when it comes to water and farmland?
One morning last summer, a friend and I were discussing the fires sweeping the West. The conversation turned to water and my friend, the owner of a recreation-based company, complained bitterly about the amount of water devoted to agriculture in Colorado.
"Did you know," he asked bitterly, "that 80% of the water in Colorado is used for agriculture? Yet farming and ranching only constitute 14% of the economy?" (my numbers are estimates--I can't recall the precise figures but that's close)
A decade ago, I might have nodded sympathetically and joined the chorus of dissent. But instead I said, "So what?"
"So what?" he growled in disbelief. "What are you talking about? You think it's GOOD that farmers use so much water?
"Well what would you prefer?" I answered. "Take the agricultural lands in many of the valleys in Colorado. Would you rather see them save the water for human consumption and encourage 50,000 people to move into the area? If you shut down the farms, surely there will be plenty of water for massive urban expansion."
"No," he replied. "I don't want that either."
I shook my head. "Well, it's going to be one or the other. As B. Traven once said, 'This is the real world, muchacho, and we are all in it.' Do you think they'll just let the water flow slowly to the sea? This is America, pal. Somebody's going to make money off that water."
So this is a question about highest and best use of the land that I'd like all environmentalists to answer. It is a hypothetical for you. Imagine there is a 100 acre alfalfa field that requires 100,000 gallons of water a week to produce a healthy crop. But what if a condominium complex of 300 units could be built on that same 100 acres and the water use by all those new condo residents could be cut by as much as 75%. Would the new construction represent a "higher and better use of the land" because it used less water? It's a question we all need to consider.
I still understand the points made by "cow-free" advocates. I still recognize the damage caused by reckless grazing practices. I know changes need to be made. But at a time where the commodification of beauty, where the "amenities economy" is rapidly creating an entirely new threat to the beauty and solitude and health of the American West, a "cow-free" West as an end-all solution to resource degradation is foolish and simplistic. Never underestimate the greed of American Entrepreneurialism. Marketing Beauty is a brand new industry that may one day make us all long for a chance to demonstrate our Bovolexia, and there won't be a cow in sight to satisfy us.
Our irresistible urge to moo may be replaced by an uncontrollable need to cry.
WILDERNESS VALUES: INTRINSIC or ECONOMIC
Two contributions to The Salt Lake Tribune caught my eye last week. One was an excellent letter from David Jorgensen of Salt Lake City to "The Public Forum" about environmental ethics. "It is unfortunate," he wrote, "that wilderness advocates must resort to economic arguments as part of their advocacy. There are some areas that...should be left alone for their own intrinsic worth and not just for human economics or even human enjoyment."
Exactly. It's an argument this publication has been making for years and will continue to pursue.
But in the same issue, page one, another article only confirmed Jorgensen's fears (and mine) about the future of the environmental movement. The headline read, "Outdoor Group Threatens to Leave Utah Over Land Deal." In response to a disastrous plan by Interior Secretary Gale Norton to cut millions of acres of BLM wilderness from Utah, and with the support and blessing of Governor Leavitt, Peter Metcalfe is threatening to move his Outdoor Retailer trade show, worth $24 million to the state's economy, somewhere else.
Suddenly, Leavitt is in a panic and quickly scheduled a meeting with Metcalfe and other outdoor industry representatives, "in hopes of selling them on his environmental bona fides."
"Selling" is the key word here, because that's what's happening. All the intrinsic reasons for wilderness are being lost in the hard-sell, not just by the people who oppose wilderness, but by those who support it as well! All the eloquence of John Muir and David Brower and Ed Abbey, among many others, couldn't move hearts and minds to a decent wilderness bill.
But take away a trade show and maybe we'll get what we wanted. But at what price? Once again, we're talking about the commodification of Nature and the marketing of beauty. The Outdoor Industry needs a pristine wilderness to make money, so what better reason to preserve it? For the environmental community to embrace, or even cast a blind eye toward that philosophy is more than I can stomach.
And the end result will never be what Abbey or Brower had in mind. Not by a long shot.
CANYONEERING UPDATE
In late January, without notice and without serious further review, the National Park Service renewed the one year Incidental Business Permit (IBP) of a Moab canyoneering company that offers backcountry, off-trail tours in Arches National Park.
A November 20, 2002 joint letter of concern to the NPS that included signatures from The Grand Canyon Trust, the Glen Canyon Group of the Sierra Club, and The Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance, that asked to be kept "informed of current commercial permitting and of future commercial use planning," was ignored. Dozens of Zephyr readers also wrote to the NPS this winter, expressing concern and asking for an update; as of May 20, none of them had received a reply. The Park Service has determined that public input is not needed.
A critical part of the permitting process is the completion of an "N-16: Environmental Screening Form." NPS staff are required to look at the current and future impacts of operations like this and determine if they do or will adversely affect the park environment. In 2002, the NPS ignored questions that analyzed the "cumulative effects" of commercial backcountry use; yet, in a Zephyr interview in May 2002, Chief Ranger Jim Webster conceded, "We have to look at the Big Picture, and it takes resources to do that---money and people and expertise."
So there was some hope among us, after so many citizens and environmental groups took the time to express concern over future commercial backcountry use, that the NPS might re-examine the IBP process more carefully and find the resources to do a more thorough job of considering future impacts.
Instead they really did nothing. The NPS didn't even update the N-16. In 2002, that form had concluded there were "no affected publics." With public interest rising, it would be reasonable to think the NPS might have taken a second look. But it didn't.
The issue here has always been the long-term consequences of a weakly regulated new and growing recreational industry. What would happen if other companies applied for permits in the Arches backcountry? What is the potential for long-term damage? Nobody knows and the NPS admits it.
The IBP permittee has tried to define this debate as a personal attack on his company and it never has been. From my perspective it's always been "The Numbers Stupid." Even too many well-meaning environmentalists, all trying to get in touch with Nature in the same place, will ruin it. The current Incidental Business Permittee would be foolish to be anything but careful and respectful of the park resources.
In fact, if I thought that the commercial exploitation of the Arches backcountry could be stabilized at the current level of use, I could almost live with it.
If the Park Service could guarantee that it would never issue a commercial permit for backcountry use to any other company, if the number of backcountry tour locations was to be frozen at the current level, and if the current permittee reduced the number of tours into the Fiery Furnace, I'd be the first to sign off on a compromise like that.
But it's not going to happen. The NPS can't give exclusive commercial backcountry privileges to one company; yet it continues to base its concerns for backcountry commercial use on the impacts of just one company...That's the rub and it always has been.
As long as the Park Service keeps its head in the sand over this issue, we'll keep trying to pull its head out of it. But so far, I'm not encouraged.
To contact the NPS about this issue, email: rock_smith@NPS.gov. And please send The Zephyr a copy.
