tag:theconversation.com,2011:/us/topics/us-land-policy-32019/articlesUS land policy – The Conversation2017-05-03T14:05:20Ztag:theconversation.com,2011:article/770752017-05-03T14:05:20Z2017-05-03T14:05:20ZTrump’s plan to dismantle national monuments comes with steep cultural and ecological costs<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/167600/original/file-20170502-17271-10mw5hz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The Trump administration will review the status of The Bears Ears National Monument in Utah, one of the country's most significant cultural sites. </span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/mypubliclands/31828924051/in/photolist-QuBydB-PrppLt-QuBz4V-QuBzpK-QuBzf6-Prpsr8-QuBzmZ-QuBy2e-QuBAZZ-PrppVg-QBCb6S-Prpq1M-QuBzrt-QETUbV-QuBztx-QBCbbm-PrppAD-QuBzV4-PrpoL2-QBCbgS-QuBA7M-QuBytX-QuByoX-QuBAd8-QuByC4-Q6Wtw1-Q6Wty5-QuBAhg-PrpqB6-QuByyX-Q6WtD5-QuBARH-Q6WtLQ-QuBAwp-Q6WtPf-PoFAdh-Q6WtJW-Prpsix-PrpsAr-PrpsG8-PrpoD8-DnRyMd-QF2rBd-QjZnrm-QQGYZ5-QF2qWL-QF2qzy-QQGZym-QQGXMA-9jALaD">Bureau of Land Management</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>In the few days since President Trump issued his <a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2017/04/26/presidential-executive-order-review-designations-under-antiquities-act">Executive Order on National Monuments</a>, many legal scholars have <a href="https://theconversation.com/national-monuments-presidents-can-create-them-but-only-congress-can-undo-them-76774">questioned the legality</a> of his actions under the Antiquities Act. Indeed, if the president attempts to revoke or downsize a monument designation, such actions would be on <a href="http://www.progressivereform.org/CPRBlog.cfm?idBlog=13FE94FA-F7D4-935A-3C895B78AC18B27F">shaky, if any, legal ground</a>.</p>
<p>But beyond President Trump’s dubious reading of the Antiquities Act, his threats also implicate a suite of other cultural and ecological laws implemented within our national monuments. </p>
<p>By opening a Department of Interior review of all large-scale monuments designated since 1996, Trump places at risk two decades’ worth of financial and human investment in areas such as endangered species protection, ecosystem health, recognition of tribal interests and historical protection.</p>
<h2>Why size matters</h2>
<p>Trump’s order suggests that larger-scale monuments such as Bears Ears National Monument in Utah, or the Missouri River Breaks National Monument in Montana, run afoul of the Antiquities Act because of their size. Nothing is farther from the truth. The <a href="http://uscode.house.gov/view.xhtml?req=granuleid%3AUSC-prelim-title54-chapter3203&edition=prelim">act</a> gives presidents discretion to protect landmarks and “objects of historic or scientific interest” located within federal lands. Designations are not limited to a particular acreage, but rather to “the smallest area compatible with proper care and management of the objects to be protected.”</p>
<p>Thus, the size and geographic range of the protected resources dictate the scale of the designation. We would not be properly managing the Grand Canyon by preserving a foot-wide cross-section of its topography in a museum.</p>
<p>The U.S. Supreme Court upheld the validity of larger-scale monuments when it <a href="https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/252/450/case.html">affirmed</a> President Teddy Roosevelt’s 1908 designation of the Grand Canyon as “the greatest eroded canyon in the United States” in Cameron v. U.S. in 1920. Cameron, an Arizona prospector-politician, had filed thousands of baseless mining claims within the canyon and on its rim, including the scenic Bright Angel Trail, where he erected a gate and exacted an entrance fee. He challenged Roosevelt’s sweeping designation and lost, spectacularly, because the <a href="https://theconversation.com/how-the-grand-canyon-changed-our-ideas-of-natural-beauty-56204">Grand Canyon’s grandeur</a> was precisely what made it worthy of protection. </p>
<p>By downsizing or dismantling a monument, Trump would be intentionally unprotecting the larger-scale resources our nation has been managing as national treasures. The loss in value would be considerable, and compounded doubly by the lost cultural and ecological progress we have made under related laws. </p>
<h2>Cultural costs of downsizing</h2>
<p>The <a href="https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/54/320301">Antiquities Act</a> has long been used to protect important archaeological resources. Some of the earliest designations, like El Morro and Chaco Canyon in New Mexico, protected prehistoric rock art and ruins as part of the nation’s scientific record. This protection has been particularly critical in the Southwest, where looting and pot hunting <a href="http://graphics.latimes.com/utah-sting/">remain a significant threat</a>. Similar interests drove the creation of several monuments <a href="http://www.latimes.com/nation/la-na-national-monuments-pictures-20170426-htmlstory.html">subject to</a> Trump’s order, including <a href="https://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/WCPD-1996-09-23/pdf/WCPD-1996-09-23-Pg1788.pdf">Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument</a>, <a href="https://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/WCPD-2000-06-12/pdf/WCPD-2000-06-12-Pg1317.pdf">Canyon of the Ancients National Monument</a> and <a href="https://www.blm.gov/sites/blm.gov/files/documents/files/2016bearsears.prc_.rel_.pdf">Bears Ears National Monument</a>. Thus, any changes to those monuments mean less protection for – and less opportunity to learn from – these archaeological wonders.</p>
<p>But we have learned that our past and our natural world are not merely matters for scientific inquiry to be explained by professors through lectures and field studies. Instead, scientists, archaeologists and <a href="https://www.doi.gov/sites/doi.gov/files/uploads/so3342_partnerships.pdf">federal land managers</a> recognize the need to understand and foster continuing cultural connection between indigenous people and the areas where they and their ancestors have lived, worshipped, hunted and gathered since time immemorial. Many of these places are on federal lands.</p>
<p>While other recent designations recognized the present-day use of monument areas by tribes and their members, Bears Ears National Monument was the first to specifically protect both historic and prehistoric cultural resources and the ongoing cultural value of the area to present-day tribes. Unlike prior monuments, Bears Ears came at the initiative of tribal people, led by a <a href="http://bearsearscoalition.org/">unique inter-tribal coalition</a> that brought together many area residents and garnered support from over 30 tribes nationwide. This coalition also sought <a href="http://www.bearsearscoalition.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/Bears-Ears-Inter-Tribal-Coalition-Proposal-10-15-15.pdf">collaborative tribal-federal management</a> as a way to meaningfully invigorate cultural protection. As a result, President Obama also established the Bears Ears Commission, an advisory group of elected tribal members with whom federal managers must meaningfully engage in managing the monument.</p>
<p>This national investment in cultural collaboration brings great value – a value utterly ignored by Trump’s order. In fact, under that order, Bears Ears faces an expedited (45-day) review because, as Secretary Ryan Zinke <a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2017/04/25/press-briefing-secretary-interior-ryan-zinke-executive-order-review">noted in a recent press conference</a>, it is “the most current one.” Though the order includes opportunity for tribal input, the Bears Ears inter-tribal coalition <a href="http://bearsearscoalition.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/Letter-to-Sec-Zinke-on-NM-Review_Signed_FINAL.pdf">has yet to hear from Secretary Zinke</a>, notwithstanding numerous requests to meet. </p>
<h2>Ecological costs of downsizing</h2>
<p>Because they preclude development, national monuments are also critically important for ecological protection. In fact, they often serve the objectives of other federal requirements, such as the Endangered Species Act. </p>
<p>For example, Devils Hole National Monument provides the only known habitat for the endangered Devils Hole Pupfish (Cyprinodon diabolis). This has meant that groundwater exploitation from nearby development is restricted to protect Pupfish habitat. Similarly, the Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument is home to an array of imperiled wildlife, including the endangered desert tortoise and the endangered California condor, along with many other native species like desert bighorn sheep and peregrine falcons.</p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/167607/original/file-20170502-17271-1s4txpr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/167607/original/file-20170502-17271-1s4txpr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/167607/original/file-20170502-17271-1s4txpr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/167607/original/file-20170502-17271-1s4txpr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/167607/original/file-20170502-17271-1s4txpr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/167607/original/file-20170502-17271-1s4txpr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/167607/original/file-20170502-17271-1s4txpr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/167607/original/file-20170502-17271-1s4txpr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument is among the national monuments vital to enforcing the Endangered Species Act.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/mypubliclands/8878316625/in/photolist-ewxGdz-S5VRt4-qVx4n8-RJDo9C-qfWL4G-ewxEst-ewAQXd-cQBtZ-6U72JX-4QFPxq-ewAVid-ewxTMt-ewxHAg-pG8m4u-i1ZXLz-S5VS54-odHHmM-pCJYJC-peM7uy-gYRDzZ-gYRkDP-gYQXBo-gYSkce-aCydKL-gYRqgg-gYR72k-gYQHCF-pW763p-qdxtQt-gYRr22-gYQanE-cVF4P5-gYRMMa-pgMGyp-gNkXbF-oUw4cu-4WDCFM-gYQZVR-qdxgDp-ewxB7k-ewAZDC-ewxS66-ewAJdh-fBBwpi-ewANCm-ewAWDd-ewxFN8-ewAYjC-4QFPUo-ewAQwu">Bureau of Land Management</a></span>
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<p>Within the protective reach of a national monument, we are also likely to find important stretches of land officially designated by federal agencies as protected land, such as scenic wilderness, <a href="https://www.blm.gov/nlcs_web/sites/id/st/en/prog/NLCS/wilderness_study_areas0.html">wilderness study areas</a>, the Bureau of Land Management’s areas of critical environmental concern (<a href="https://www.blm.gov/or/plans/wopr/ACEC.php">ACEC</a>) or the Forest Service’s research natural areas (<a href="https://www.fs.fed.us/rmrs/research-natural-areas">RNAs</a>). Each monument’s care is thus interwoven with the management of these other ecologically designated areas, something plainly apparent to the communities and agency officials long working with these lands.</p>
<h2>Zinke’s backyard</h2>
<p>These costs may hit <a href="https://theconversation.com/can-ryan-zinke-balance-conservation-and-development-as-interior-secretary-69970">close to home for Zinke</a> since the Missouri River Breaks National Monument, located in his home state of Montana, is on the chopping block. President Clinton designated this 375,000-acre monument in 2001 to protect its biological, geological and historical wealth from the pressures of grazing and oil and gas extraction. Clinton noted that “[t]he area has remained largely unchanged in the nearly 200 years since Meriwether Lewis and William Clark traveled through it on their epic journey.” </p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/167602/original/file-20170502-17263-13iv3hr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/167602/original/file-20170502-17263-13iv3hr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/167602/original/file-20170502-17263-13iv3hr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/167602/original/file-20170502-17263-13iv3hr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/167602/original/file-20170502-17263-13iv3hr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/167602/original/file-20170502-17263-13iv3hr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/167602/original/file-20170502-17263-13iv3hr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/167602/original/file-20170502-17263-13iv3hr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke will need to assess the cultural and ecological value of a national monument in his home state of Montana.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span>
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<p>The monument contains a National Wild and Scenic River corridor and segments of the Lewis and Clark and Nez Perce National Historic Trails, as well as the Cow Creek Island ACEC. It is the “fertile crescent” for hundreds of iconic game species and provides essential winter range for sage grouse (<a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/energy-environment/wp/2015/09/22/fewer-than-500000-sage-grouse-are-left-the-obama-administration-says-they-dont-merit-federal-protection/?utm_term=.7be54c439471">carefully managed to avoid listing</a> under the ESA) and spawning habitat for the endangered pallid sturgeon. Archaeological and historical sites also abound, including teepee rings, historic trails and lookout sites of Meriwether Lewis.</p>
<p>The size of the Missouri River Breaks monument is thus scaled to protect an area in which lie valuable objects and geographic features, and a historic – even monumental – journey took place. And every investment we make in the monument yields a twofold return as it supports our nation’s cultural and ecological obligations under related federal laws. </p>
<p>At the end of the day, while Trump’s order trumpets the possibility that monument downsizing will usher in economic growth, it makes no mention of the extraordinary economic, scientific and cultural investments we have made in those monuments over the years. Unless these losses are considered in the calculus, our nation has not truly engaged in a meaningful assessment of the costs of second-guessing our past presidents.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/77075/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Trump wants to scale back national monuments on federal lands in the name of boosting the economy. But this would undo decades of investments to manage our cultural and ecological resources.Michelle Bryan, Professor of Law, University of MontanaMonte Mills, Assistant Professor of Law & Co-Director, Margery Hunter Brown Indian Law Clinic, University of MontanaSandra B. Zellmer, Professor of Law, University of Nebraska-LincolnLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/678962016-11-08T11:09:28Z2016-11-08T11:09:28ZWhy the court ‘victory’ for Malheur militants was anything but<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/144733/original/image-20161106-27904-z2z89q.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Ammon Bundy speaks to local ranchers in January 2016 urging them – unsuccessfully – to take up armed occupation of the Malheur Wildlife Refuge in Oregon. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Peter A. Walker</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Ammon Bundy lost. This might sound strange in light of many recent headlines pronouncing the <a href="http://www.pbs.org/newshour/rundown/bundys-found-not-guilty-oregon-standoff-trial/">stunning acquittals</a> of Bundy and his six codefendants in a federal court, as well as Bundy’s own <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/2016/11/01/c45bdf4e-a04c-11e6-a44d-cc2898cfab06_story.html">triumphal statements</a> following the verdicts. </p>
<p>Nevertheless, by the measure of Bundy’s own stated goals, his occupation of the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge in Harney County, Oregon, was an abject failure. </p>
<p>Bundy was defeated not by the Federal Bureau of Investigation or by federal prosecutors. Instead, he was defeated by the majority of ordinary citizens in Harney County who stood steadfastly against Bundy’s plan. </p>
<p>I spent several weeks there during the occupation last January and witnessed this rejection firsthand. Bundy lost in large part because the community has been working hard for decades to find collaborative solutions that address grievances with federal land management without resorting to the confrontational methods of the militants. </p>
<h2>A crucial meeting</h2>
<p>When Ammon Bundy led the seizure of the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge, he was anything but shy about his demands. He stood almost daily before throngs of reporters and banks of microphones and television cameras declaring that his objectives were to free <a href="https://www.justice.gov/usao-or/pr/eastern-oregon-ranchers-convicted-arson-resentenced-five-years-prison">convicted Harney County ranchers Dwight and Steven Hammond</a> and to give the land in the refuge “back” to loggers, ranchers and miners. </p>
<p>More quietly but very clearly, Bundy declared that his goal was to make Harney County into an example of a “<a href="http://www.latimes.com/nation/la-na-sej-oregon-standoff-20160116-story.html">federal-free</a>” county that would serve as a model for other communities already “on the edge.” Essentially, he declared sovereignty from a federal government that he repeatedly insisted had invalidated itself through “overreach” of its constitutional authority. Bundy’s goal was not to win a battle in a federal court or to rally his followers; his goal was to inspire a grassroots revolution that would create a largely federal-free rural America.</p>
<p>Thus, by Bundy’s own definition of success, he failed. The Hammonds are still in prison, and Bundy’s own actions virtually guarantee President Obama will not grant them clemency. Not a single acre of land in the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge was transferred to local ownership. The federal government remains in authority over as much rural land as it did the day Bundy staged his armed takeover.</p>
<p>The key to Bundy’s failure was <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hXJwMSjwYQw&feature=youtu.be">staunch resistance</a> from the very people he presumed would gladly become the foot soldiers in his revolution: Harney County ranchers. </p>
<p>On Jan. 18, 2016, Bundy held a crucial meeting with about 30 Harney County ranchers in the tiny rural hamlet of Crane, Oregon, which I attended. Bundy insisted that the federal government had become a “corrupt” and “tyrannical” force, and that it could be driven out by even a small number of local ranchers if only they “took a stand.” His voice rising, Bundy implored the ranchers: “Now is the time, Harney County is the place, and you are the people.” Bundy assured the ranchers that he and his armed supporters would provide “defense,” and that the government would back down.</p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/144736/original/image-20161106-27904-12lzeax.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/144736/original/image-20161106-27904-12lzeax.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/144736/original/image-20161106-27904-12lzeax.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/144736/original/image-20161106-27904-12lzeax.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/144736/original/image-20161106-27904-12lzeax.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/144736/original/image-20161106-27904-12lzeax.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/144736/original/image-20161106-27904-12lzeax.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/144736/original/image-20161106-27904-12lzeax.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">Ranchers from Harney County challenged Bundy’s call for rebellion on Jan. 23, 2016, and not one joined him when he asked them to come to a ceremony to tear up their ranching contracts.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Peter A. Walker</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Bundy, along with his brother Ryan and LaVoy Finicum, literally begged Harney County ranchers to come to the Malheur refuge on Jan. 23 for a ceremony pledging to tear up their federal grazing contracts. While some of the ranchers in the room expressed agreement about Bundy’s frustrations with federal land management, none was willing to heed Bundy’s call to tear up their federal grazing contracts. </p>
<p>One Harney County rancher told Bundy there must be “other means” to achieve their goals. Another Harney County rancher directly confronted Bundy, stating “I’m not going to fight an uphill battle that’s not going to be won.” On Jan. 23, not a single Harney County rancher took up Bundy’s call. One rancher from New Mexico came and took the pledge, but several months later <a href="http://www.thewildlifenews.com/2016/03/28/forest-service-increases-rogue-ranchers-use-by-70-for-2016/">renewed his U.S. Forest Service grazing contract</a>. </p>
<h2>Poster child for effective work</h2>
<p>Why did no Harney County rancher take up Bundy’s call? Tellingly, at the Crane meeting the rancher who declared his refusal to pursue a “battle that’s not going to be won” proposed instead to form local boards to provide input to federal land management agencies – a collaborative approach that has been widely and successfully used in Harney County. </p>
<p>In fact, Harney County is widely known as a poster child of collaborative methods to address precisely the tensions between local communities and federal agencies that Bundy spoke about. The ranchers were not denying problems exist – they were declaring that they had better, peaceful methods to resolve those problems, and they did not need Bundy to tell them what to do.</p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/144737/original/image-20161106-27947-j63rym.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/144737/original/image-20161106-27947-j63rym.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/144737/original/image-20161106-27947-j63rym.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/144737/original/image-20161106-27947-j63rym.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/144737/original/image-20161106-27947-j63rym.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/144737/original/image-20161106-27947-j63rym.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/144737/original/image-20161106-27947-j63rym.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/144737/original/image-20161106-27947-j63rym.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Harney County in eastern Oregon is a poster child for finding solutions to conservation and economic goals by collaborating with federal agencies.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.fws.gov/endangered/map/ESA_success_stories/OR/OR_story4/index.html">Brent Lawrence/USFWS</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The evidence of their effective and practical methods goes far back. In 2000, Harney County ranchers and the federal government established the Steens Mountain Cooperative Management and Protection agreement. In 2005, Harney County ranchers established the widely celebrated <a href="http://highdesertpartnership.org/who-we-are/mission.html">High Desert Partnership</a> to promote collaborative problem-solving. In 2013 Harney County ranchers along with the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge staff created the pioneering <a href="https://www.fws.gov/uploadedFiles/Region_1/NWRS/Zone_2/Malheur/Documents/MalheurNWR_FCCP_table_contents.pdf">Malheur Comprehensive Conservation Plan</a>. In 2015 Harney County ranchers created a <a href="https://www.fws.gov/endangered/map/ESA_success_stories/OR/OR_story4/index.html">plan</a> for managing sage grouse that became a model for many other rural communities. </p>
<p>These projects seek to meet both conservation goals and the economic needs of the community. When Bundy spoke of “overreaching” federal authority and the need for armed rebellion, many Harney County ranchers saw Bundy’s approach as an unnecessary bridge too far. As one Harney County rancher stated, “collaboration is what inoculated us from the Bundy virus.”</p>
<h2>Problems with Bundy’s methods</h2>
<p>To be clear, there was and is <a href="http://www.oregonlive.com/oregon-standoff/2016/10/ammon_bundy_testifies_about_ho.html">considerable sympathy</a> in Harney County for the concerns expressed by Ammon Bundy and his followers. In several county elections after the end of the Malheur occupation that were widely viewed as <a href="http://www.opb.org/news/series/election-2016/harney-county-vote-armed-occupation-opposition/">referendums on the Bundy ideology</a>, the proportion of the local electorate that supported candidates and positions seen as sympathetic to Bundy’s views <a href="http://www.opb.org/news/series/burns-oregon-standoff-bundy-militia-news-updates/oregon-harney-voters-reject-recall-against-judge-steve-grasty/">ranged from about 20 percent to 30 percent</a>.</p>
<p>Even among these sympathizers, however, the number of Harney County citizens who supported Bundy’s methods was much smaller based on what I have observed and been told after spending months in the community. At the time of the occupation even some members of the Harney County Committee of Safety (a parallel-governmental organization established by Bundy and still operating) <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XoT8A75sVIE">spoke strongly against Bundy’s methods</a>.</p>
<p>The community’s overwhelming rejection of Ammon Bundy’s radical methods in Harney County was the death knell for his revolution – at least for now. Consider if the community had flocked to Bundy’s side as he implored them to do. Federal authorities would have had a law enforcement problem of an unprecedented scale and any violent outcome could well have sparked widespread rebellion across rural America. As U.S. Interior Secretary Sally Jewell later observed, through collaboration <a href="http://www.oregonlive.com/oregon-standoff/2016/03/contrary_to_oregon_standoff_cl.html">disaster was averted</a>.</p>
<p>Bundy lost. For that we have the community and ranchers of Harney County to thank.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/67896/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Peter Walker does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Militants who took over the Malheur Wildlife Refuge in Oregon – and were acquitted of charges – ultimately failed because local ranchers saw a better way to deal with federal agencies.Peter Walker, Professor of Geography, University of OregonLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/681342016-11-03T23:01:09Z2016-11-03T23:01:09ZHistory points to more dangerous Malheur-style standoffs<p>The acquittal of Ammon Bundy and other militia members who occupied the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge in Oregon last January leaves our public lands and the people who steward them in a vulnerable position. Indeed, it puts a target on their backs.</p>
<p>The Bundy family has said as much. “The government should be scared,” Ryan Bundy <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/2016/11/01/c45bdf4e-a04c-11e6-a44d-cc2898cfab06_story.html">asserted</a> to the Washington Post less than a week after their acquittal. “They are in the wrong. The land does not belong to the government. The land belongs to the people of Clark County, not to the people of the United States.” When asked whether he and fellow militiamen had the right to take up arms to assert their control of the public land, Bundy declared: “Ask George Washington.” </p>
<p>This brazen and unapologetic rhetoric is a striking contrast to the Oregon jury’s carefully tailored language about their decision to free those men who bore arms against the federal government. As <a href="http://www.oregonlive.com/oregon-standoff/2016/10/juror_4_prosecutors_in_oregon.html">one juror</a> told the Portland Oregonian in response to the post-verdict uproar: “Don’t they know that ‘not guilty’ does not mean innocent?” </p>
<p>Clearly the militants, whose actions echo 20th-century Sagebrush Rebellions to take local control of public lands, know no such thing. For them the verdict offered an affirming message which, in my view, imperils the public servants who protect our lands in the face of a long history of threats and violence. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/144468/original/image-20161103-25346-1jy7d1k.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/144468/original/image-20161103-25346-1jy7d1k.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/144468/original/image-20161103-25346-1jy7d1k.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/144468/original/image-20161103-25346-1jy7d1k.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/144468/original/image-20161103-25346-1jy7d1k.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/144468/original/image-20161103-25346-1jy7d1k.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/144468/original/image-20161103-25346-1jy7d1k.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/144468/original/image-20161103-25346-1jy7d1k.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Sagebrush Rebellion rally in 1980 on July 4 in Grand County, Utah. The roots of today’s disputes echo violent protests in the 1970s and 1980s.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Sagebrush_Rebellion_July_4th,_1980_Grand_County_Utah.JPG">TheRealDeJureTour/wikipedia</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Debate over public lands has been a crucial part of my scholarship, but it also contains a personal dimension: For the past three decades I have been helping to train Forest Service leaders at all levels of the organization. A key part of my contribution to their studies has been the impact of the Sagebrush Rebellion, past and present, on the management and managers of our public lands. This close relationship leaves me deeply concerned for their safety.</p>
<h2>History of violence</h2>
<p>My worry is also framed within the larger political context: The Bundy verdict will play into the hands of those political forces – state legislatures, governors and congressional representatives – who have been <a href="https://www.gop.com/platform/americas-natural-resources/">scheming</a> to force the sale or the giving away of U.S. public lands to the individual states. The Republican Party platform is on record as being in full support of this <a href="https://theconversation.com/dems-and-the-gop-are-miles-apart-on-yet-another-issue-public-lands-65772">dismantling of our system of national forests, parks and refuges</a>.</p>
<p>Ammon Bundy and his followers make the same case. In a post-trial press conference, <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2016/10/28/off-the-charts-unbelievable-will-acquittal-of-oregon-refuge-occupiers-embolden-extremists-militias/">the defendants</a> underscored their posture as patriots, who by dint of arms have defended the Constitution from an overly aggressive federal government. </p>
<p>As for the group’s possession of weapons, that is described in the most benign terms: “For these defendants and these people, having a firearm has nothing to do with a threat or anything else,” Bundy defense attorney Matthew Schindler <a href="http://absoluterights.com/bundy-clan-is-free/">declared</a>. “It’s as much a statement of their rural culture as a cowboy hat or a pair of jeans. I think the jury believed at the end of the day that that’s why the guns were there.” </p>
<p>However folksy his language, it masks the historical reality that such threats to public servants protecting public lands have been commonplace for more than a century. </p>
<p>No sooner had Congress in 1891 granted the executive branch the power to redesignate federal lands as national forests and to establish regulations for their use, than some westerners rose up in opposition. The grazing, mining and lumbering industries chafed at the small fees they were required to pay for the resources they once took at will. As I observe in my analysis of the Malheur occupation in my new book, <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Not-Golden-State-Sustainability-California/dp/1595347828">“Not So Golden State</a>,” they fought back in the federal court system courts, and lost every test case. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/144476/original/image-20161103-25356-v2vf87.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/144476/original/image-20161103-25356-v2vf87.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/144476/original/image-20161103-25356-v2vf87.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=403&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/144476/original/image-20161103-25356-v2vf87.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=403&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/144476/original/image-20161103-25356-v2vf87.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=403&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/144476/original/image-20161103-25356-v2vf87.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=507&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/144476/original/image-20161103-25356-v2vf87.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=507&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/144476/original/image-20161103-25356-v2vf87.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=507&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Threats to employees of federal land agencies goes back to the late 19th century when Gifford Pinchot, the first chief of the U.S. Forest Service, visited each hotspot, even one in Alaska where locals hung him in effigy.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://fhsarchives.wordpress.com/2013/07/16/gifford-pinchots-ten-commandments/">US Forest Service</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>On the ground, they took out their frustrations on the local representatives of the nascent Forest Service. The verbal and bodily threats against its employees were so omnipresent that the agency’s first chief, <a href="https://fhsarchives.wordpress.com/2013/07/16/gifford-pinchots-ten-commandments/">Gifford Pinchot</a>, made it a point to visit every hotspot to demonstrate that he had employees’ backs. And when the good citizens of Cordova, Alaska, hung Pinchot in effigy, he made certain to travel there, too.</p>
<p>Similar attacks continued across the last century. In the 1940s, Pulitzer Prize-winning historian and social critic Bernard DeVoto wrote a series of essays in Harper’s that exposed how the “Landgrabbers” of his generation intimidated Forest Service and Bureau of Land Management rangers across the West, bullied the agencies’ Washington offices and used their clout to bend the U.S. House subcommittee on public lands to their will. Their threats to employ the “sterner justice” of mob violence only underscored that their “ultimate hope,” DeVoto <a href="http://harpers.org/archive/1948/07/sacred-cows-and-public-lands/">affirmed</a>, “is to destroy the established conservation policies of the United States.”</p>
<p>President Ronald Reagan fanned these flames when he came to power in 1981, arguing that “government is not the solution to our problem; government is the problem.” That was music to the ears of those, like earlier generations of the Bundy family, who disdained federal land managers. </p>
<p>Egged on by right-wing talk radio commentators, verbal and physical attacks escalated. Vigilantes bombed Forest Service offices, a ranger discovered an explosive device under his truck and Elko County (Nevada) <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/1996/03/16/us/court-puts-down-rebellion-over-control-of-federal-land.html">commissioners</a> used bulldozers to crash through Forest Service fencing. The agency responded by urging its staff to wear civilian clothes on the job and drive their personal vehicles to work.</p>
<h2>Fuel to the fire</h2>
<p>There is reason to suspect that this kind of coercion and violence will resume in the wake of the Malheur acquittals, just as it did in the initial aftermath of the Malheur occupation in January. Last winter, according to the nonpartisan conservation and advocacy group the <a href="https://medium.com/@WesternPriorities/armed-militants-pose-ongoing-dangerous-threat-to-government-employees-working-to-protect-americas-dc3858ff2a5b#.kabmzfjrv">Center for Western Priorities</a>, land managers reported a troubling increase in confrontations with Sagebrush-like groups on federal lands. </p>
<p>Bureau of Land Management employees received death threats and even <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/2016/11/01/c45bdf4e-a04c-11e6-a44d-cc2898cfab06_story.html">withdrew</a> from the contentious Gold Butte rangelands on which the Bundys graze their cattle, whose archaeological treasures have since then been trashed. The Fish and Wildlife Service reported a number of confrontations with “militia” groups on refuges, which understandably intensified rangers’ fears for their welfare.</p>
<p>Their anxieties have increased post-verdict. “The danger is that we get armed invasions of all kinds of public lands and similar institutions,” <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/after-oregon-verdict-a-hot-debate-a-victory-for-liberty-or-license-to-intimidate/2016/10/28/3cc1372c-9d37-11e6-a0ed-ab0774c1eaa5_story.html">argues</a> Mark Potok of the Southern Poverty Law Center. “The real danger is bloodshed.” His colleague, <a href="https://www.splcenter.org/news/2016/06/15/splc-public-support-perceived-victory-bundy-ranch-2014-emboldened-extremists-standoff">Heidi Beirich</a>, director of the SPLC’s Intelligence Project, drives the point home: “This is a growing movement that is probably going to grow more due to this verdict because they have shown they can use armed interventions and not be punished for them.”</p>
<p>One of the <a href="http://www.oregonlive.com/oregon-standoff/2016/10/juror_4_prosecutors_in_oregon.html">Bundy jurors</a> even anticipated this dire possibility: “It was not lost on us that our verdict(s) might inspire future actions that are regrettable, but that sort of thinking was not permitted when considering the charges before us.”</p>
<p>Fair enough. But whatever regrettable “future actions” occur, it will not be the jurors who will endure them but the dedicated men and women stewarding our public lands, our most treasured terrain. Who will step up and protect them?</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/68134/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Char Miller does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Acquitted in the Malheur takeover trial, Ryan Bundy urges protests against efforts to conserve public lands. Who will protect federal employees?Char Miller, W. M. Keck Professor of Environmental Analysis, Pomona CollegeLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/657722016-10-14T01:55:29Z2016-10-14T01:55:29ZDems and the GOP are miles apart on yet another issue: Public lands<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/140982/original/image-20161008-21414-1sicr17.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">What does 'public' land mean to the two political parties?</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/usfwshq/14036893418/in/album-72157644749867234/">U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>It’s unlikely the presidential candidates will field a question about public lands during their last debate. But public land is an issue that concerns many Americans, with arguments over it flaring up with cyclical regularity. </p>
<p>The <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/in-oregon-frustration-over-federal-land-rights-has-been-building-for-years/2016/01/04/9bc905a2-b330-11e5-a76a-0b5145e8679a_story.html">Malheur National Wildlife Refuge takeover</a> and the <a href="http://www.opb.org/news/series/burns-oregon-standoff-bundy-militia-news-updates/oregon-standoff-trial-6th-week-defense-plans/">ongoing trial</a> received significant media coverage, even outside of the American West, likely because, if nothing else, it presents a wild west drama. President Obama’s active use of the <a href="https://theconversation.com/how-the-antiquities-act-has-expanded-the-national-park-system-and-fueled-struggles-over-land-protection-56454">Antiquities Act</a> to create protected lands over the past few years has also contributed to a sometimes fractious dialogue. Other conflicts, such as the proposed <a href="http://fusion.net/story/322406/inside-an-epic-national-monument-on-the-brink/">Bear’s Ears National Monument</a> and the <a href="http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/jurisprudence/2016/09/why_the_sioux_battle_against_the_dakota_access_pipeline_is_such_a_big_deal.html">Dakota Access Pipeline</a> protests, have similarly brought the relationship between Native Americans and public land ownership and management to the forefront in ways we haven’t seen before. </p>
<p>These instances have forced us to confront the sometimes uncomfortable historical and social implications of how we conceive of public lands. Fundamentally, it’s a question of who has a voice in public lands management, who owns public lands and who is the “public” in public lands.</p>
<p>What is perhaps less apparent, though, is just how far apart the two major parties now are on this question. A closer look shows that they are just as divided on public lands policy as they are on gun policy or immigration reform. </p>
<h2>Rebel or steward?</h2>
<p>The debate over public land ownership – that is, land managed by the federal government of the United States – is deeply rooted in the <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-twisted-roots-of-u-s-land-policy-in-the-west-52740">history of the West</a>. </p>
<p>The debate centers on who would be the best manager of the public lands, and whether they should be managed at all by any government. We have heard this discussion for over one hundred years, most notably during the so-called<a href="http://www.hcn.org/articles/a-history-of-the-sagebrush-rebellion"> Sagebrush Rebellion</a> of the mid-1970s. A movement against federal land control, it was <a href="http://www.foresthistory.org/Publications/Books/Origins_National_Forests/sec13.htm">set off</a> in main part by the passage of the Bureau of Land Management’s Organic Act, the Federal Land Policy and Management Act of 1976. Whether or not the current debate is part of a normal fluctuation or recurrence of the Sagebrush Rebellion, there is an increased national focus on these conflicts. </p>
<p>The disagreements between Democratic and Republican candidates in the past seem to have centered more on what level of government – state, federal or perhaps even county or local – should manage the public lands and for what purpose, rather than suggestions that the land be sold. It was President Reagan, for example, who <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2016/01/04/even-sagebrush-rebel-ronald-reagan-couldnt-change-federal-land-use-in-the-west/">boldly stated</a>, “Count me in as a rebel” in support of the 1970s “Sagebrush Rebellion,” thereby championing the idea of ceding federal control to states or at least policies that tilted heavily toward resource extraction. </p>
<p>By contrast, Democrats have solidly branded themselves as pro-public lands, particularly by supporting values associated with wildlife and habitat conservation and by promoting land use by sportsmen and women, outdoor recreation and for renewable energy. </p>
<p>Hillary Clinton’s <a href="https://www.hillaryclinton.com/briefing/factsheets/2016/06/01/hillary-clintons-plan-for-conservation-and-collaborative-stewardship-of-americas-great-outdoors/">policy positions</a> echo the <a href="https://www.democrats.org/party-platform#public-lands">DNC’s platform</a> of “keeping public lands public” which we’ve seen under the Obama administration. Her platform positions are centered on collaborative stewardship of those lands and suggest federal public lands remain federal. In response to sportsmen and outdoor groups’ <a href="https://www.nwf.org/News-and-Magazines/Media-Center/News-by-Topic/General-NWF/2016/09-08-16-Sportsmen-Public-Lands-Letter-to-Presidential-Hopefuls.aspx">call for candidates</a> to support public lands, Secretary Clinton <a href="http://www.nwf.org/%7E/media/PDFs/Education-Advocacy/09-07-2016-Clinton-Response-Letter.ashx">reaffirmed</a> those positions.</p>
<h2>Weakening federal control</h2>
<p>The <a href="https://www.gop.com/the-2016-republican-party-platform/">GOP party platform</a>, meanwhile, embraces values of deregulation, expanded resource extraction and increased state control. </p>
<p>While past GOP platforms included similar language, the tone of the 2016 platform is different. It reads like an attack on the DNC platform and the Obama administration’s public land legacy. For instance, it points to the sage-grouse as a symbol for Republican arguments to weaken federal public lands control. Yet ironically, the sage-grouse avoided a federal listing on the Endangered Species Act in large part due to <a href="http://www.sagegrouseinitiative.com/">collaborative state and federal conservation efforts</a>.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/140981/original/image-20161008-21447-1izshxd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/140981/original/image-20161008-21447-1izshxd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/140981/original/image-20161008-21447-1izshxd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=389&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/140981/original/image-20161008-21447-1izshxd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=389&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/140981/original/image-20161008-21447-1izshxd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=389&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/140981/original/image-20161008-21447-1izshxd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=489&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/140981/original/image-20161008-21447-1izshxd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=489&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/140981/original/image-20161008-21447-1izshxd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=489&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Through partnerships between state and federal agencies as well as ranchers and other groups, a plan to keep the sage-grouse off the federal Endangered Species Act has succeeded.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/juliom/26631418935/in/photolist-GzjZ2r-ktpkTR-pCiEWR-kwRLDy-e6jXC3-efcqmR-efi8Es-poQLkM-cGPJ9U-spJg5e-ofoymh-sm5nQx-p7mHSp-o5dR56-pNtNMo-oztR82-cJm9xG-rcE2Qp-pPZqtS-opWmjv-bJ2YFp-7QTJBk-bsNicy-9pTJrM-q3JuLW-mVidY8-pLa7Kr-spJhDg-7T8tar-pwWpxL-7QX41S-efmcBn-qSK8XZ-7QX3zo-9xzJRX-jc8YrB-bEGoNM-nrgRVP-mVjRHs-bJ47bR-e4gm98-Gr56sh-6ea1tq-5TcH6e-gUhbgv-7QTMRz-mVhFMt-cGPJhY-cGPJpA-8FgDGv">juliom/flickr</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/">CC BY-NC-ND</a></span>
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<p>Things get more interesting, however, with the Republican Party nominee. On public lands ownership and management, Donald Trump seems to contradict his party’s platform. In a 2016 interview with <a href="http://www.fieldandstream.com/articles/hunting/2016/01/qa-donald-trump-on-guns-hunting-and-conservation">Field and Stream</a>, Trump rejected the idea of transferring public lands to states. His rhetoric briefly echoed those of public lands supporters who fear that states would be free to sell this land and decrease access. His son, Donald Trump Jr., <a href="http://www.idahostatesman.com/news/politics-government/election/article61349767.html">confirmed this position</a> on a recent fundraising stop in Idaho, a state with a significant percentage of public land.</p>
<p>While Trump’s viewpoints on public land ownership seem fairly consistent, his viewpoints on energy development on public lands, climate change and environmental protection policies are more <a href="https://www.outsideonline.com/2117796/donald-trump-environmental-scorecard">compatible</a> with the GOP platform.</p>
<p>In an interview with candidates in <a href="http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/what-do-the-presidential-candidates-know-about-science/">Scientific American</a>, Trump wasn’t very specific on public lands, but he was quick to criticize the executive branch and federal government’s reach. He advocated “shared governance” with federal, state and local governments regarding public lands and fish and wildlife protection. In his written response, he was unclear, however, on what that entails and how it differs from the current collaborative model.</p>
<p>On energy development on public lands, Trump seems consistent with the GOP platform. He <a href="http://www.wsj.com/articles/donald-trump-promises-deregulation-of-energy-production-1474566335">promises</a> removing regulations for energy development on federal lands, particularly for oil and gas. Indeed, according to <a href="http://www.politico.com/story/2016/09/forrest-lucas-trump-interior-secretary-228364">Politico</a>, oil executive Forrest Lucas is one potential candidate for Secretary of Interior. This idea has certainly worried conservation groups who are consistently against increased fossil fuel development in public lands.</p>
<p>On public lands policies, it’s safe to say that Trump is wildly unpredictable.</p>
<h2>Importance of state and local elections</h2>
<p>In what is turning out to be an unpredictable election, it’s understandable for those who care about public lands to worry. A party platform may not create policy, but it can certainly inspire it. Similarly, presidents can’t legislate, but can drive policy.</p>
<p>Regardless of who sits in the White House next year, though, the direction of public lands management also depends on who occupies key executive and administrative positions in the Department of Interior and Department of Agriculture, as well as how they interact with agency staff on the ground.</p>
<p>Importantly, Congress and state and local policymakers also hold significant power over public lands policies. These policies could include facilitating public lands transfers in one direction, or if Democrats gain seats, oppose Republican efforts to transfer or privatize public lands. The GOP platform recognizes this, calling on Congress to pass legislation to facilitate the transfer of “certain lands” to states and “national and state leaders and representatives to exert their utmost power and influence to urge the transfer of those lands…” </p>
<p>We already see such controversial bills pop up in Congress. For example, recently, Congressman Rob Bishop’s (R-UT) Public Lands Initiative Act, which <a href="http://naturalresources.house.gov/newsroom/documentsingle.aspx?DocumentID=401235">would</a> designate “millions of acres of federal land for conservation and recreation,” allow for the “exchanges and consolidates certain federal and non-federal land” and provide “economic development within the State of Utah,” passed the U.S. House Committee on Natural Resources. The proposed legislation received <a href="http://www.deseretnews.com/article/865663052/Bishops-Public-Lands-Initiative-advances-from-committee.html?pg=all%5d">significant criticism</a> for not properly including Native American consultation and paving the way for public lands transfers.</p>
<p>Public opinion can also set the mood for political action. For this reason, it is critical for those who care about public lands to stay informed of emerging policy on all levels. Voting for the next president is undoubtedly important, but voting for the next congressional, state and local leaders is equally vital when it comes to the future of our public lands because major policy changes such as land transfer must come from Congress.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/65772/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>John Freemuth receives funding from USGS and BLM . He is affiliated with the Cecil Andrus Center for Public Policy. </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Mackenzie Case is a student board member on the Public Lands Foundation. She worked for Defenders of Wildlife from 2013-2015 and interned for Idaho Conservation League in the summer of 2016. </span></em></p>Debates over federal lands, from the Malheur Refuge takeover to fossil fuel leases on public land, are back in the news. How do the two parties line up on public land policy?John Freemuth, Professor of Public Policy and Senior Fellow Cecil Andrus Center for Public Policy, Boise State UniversityMackenzie Case, Graduate Assistant in Public Administration, Boise State UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/649472016-10-10T12:16:02Z2016-10-10T12:16:02ZWhat if nature, like corporations, had the rights and protections of a person?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/140611/original/image-20161005-20110-9ipkfz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The forest around Lake Waikaremoana in New Zealand has been given legal status of a person because of its cultural significance.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/58611670@N04/6090717440/in/photostream/">Paul Nelhams/flickr</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>In recent years, the U.S. Supreme Court has solidified the concept of corporate personhood. <a href="http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2015/06/raisins-hotels-corporate-personhood-supreme-court/396773/">Following rulings</a> in such cases as <a href="http://www.scotusblog.com/case-files/cases/sebelius-v-hobby-lobby-stores-inc/">Hobby Lobby</a> and <a href="http://www.usnews.com/news/articles/2015/01/21/5-years-later-citizens-united-has-remade-us-politics">Citizens United</a>, U.S. law has established that companies are, like people, entitled to certain rights and protections.</p>
<p>But that’s not the only instance of extending legal rights to nonhuman entities. New Zealand took a <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2016/07/14/world/what-in-the-world/in-new-zealand-lands-and-rivers-can-be-people-legally-speaking.html?_r=0">radically different approach</a> in 2014 with the <a href="http://www.legislation.govt.nz/act/public/2014/0051/latest/DLM6183601.html">Te Urewera Act</a> which granted an 821-square-mile forest the legal status of a person. <a href="http://maorilawreview.co.nz/2014/10/tuhoe-crown-settlement-te-urewera-act-2014/">The forest is sacred</a> to the Tūhoe people, an indigenous group of the Maori. For them Te Urewera is an ancient and ancestral homeland that breathes life into their culture. The forest is also a living ancestor. The Te Urewera Act concludes that “Te Urewera has an identity in and of itself,” and thus must be its own entity with “all the rights, powers, duties, and liabilities of a legal person.” Te Urewera <a href="https://vertigo.revues.org/16199?lang=en#bodyftn5">holds title to itself</a>.</p>
<p>Although this legal approach is unique to New Zealand, the underlying reason for it is not. Over the last 15 years I have documented similar cultural expressions by Native Americans about their traditional, sacred places. As an anthropologist, this research has often pushed me to search for an answer to the profound question: What does it mean for nature to be a person?</p>
<h2>The snow-capped mountain</h2>
<p>A majestic mountain sits not far northwest of Albuquerque, New Mexico. Like a low triangle, with long gentle slopes, Mount Taylor is clothed in rich forests that appear a velvety charcoal-blue from the distance. Its bald summit, more than 11,000 feet high, is often blanketed in snow – a reminder of the blessing of water, when seen from the blazing desert below.</p>
<p>The Zuni tribe lives about 40 miles west of Mount Taylor. In 2012, <a href="http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/saa/aap/2014/00000002/00000004/art00001">I worked with a team to interview 24 tribal members</a> about the values they hold for Dewankwin K’yaba:chu Yalanne (“In the East Snow-capped Mountain”), as Mount Taylor is called in the Zuni language. We were told that their most ancient ancestors began an epic migration in the Grand Canyon. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/140766/original/image-20161006-32727-1ssijxc.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/140766/original/image-20161006-32727-1ssijxc.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/140766/original/image-20161006-32727-1ssijxc.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/140766/original/image-20161006-32727-1ssijxc.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/140766/original/image-20161006-32727-1ssijxc.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/140766/original/image-20161006-32727-1ssijxc.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/140766/original/image-20161006-32727-1ssijxc.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Mount Taylor in New Mexico, a sacred site to the Zuni who believe it is a living being.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Chip Colwell</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Over millennia they migrated across the Southwest, with important medicine societies and clans living around Mount Taylor. After settling in their current pueblo homes, Zunis returned to this sacred mountain to hunt animals like deer and bear, harvest wild plants like acorns and cattails, and gather minerals used in sacrosanct rituals that keep the universe in order. Across the generations Dewankwin Kyaba:chu Yalanne has come to shape Zuni history, life, and identity no less than the Vatican has for Catholics.</p>
<p>But unlike holy places in the Western world, Zunis believe Mount Taylor is a living being. Zuni elders told me that the mountain was created within the Earth’s womb. As a mountain formed by volcanic activity, it has always grown and aged. The mountain can give life as people do. The mountain’s snow melts in spring and nourishes plants and wildlife for miles. Water is the mountain’s blood; buried minerals are the mountain’s meat. Because it lives, deep below is its beating heart. Zunis consider Mount Taylor to be their kin.</p>
<p>There is a stereotype that Native American peoples have a singular connection to nature. And yet in my experience, they do see the world in a fundamentally different way from most people I know. Whether it is mountains, rivers, rocks, animals, plants, stars or weather, they see the natural world as living and breathing, deeply relational, even at times all-knowing and transcendent.</p>
<p>In my work with Arizona’s Hopi tribe, I have traveled with cultural leaders to study sacred places. They often stop to listen to the wind, or search the sky for an eagle, or smile when it begins to rain, which they believe is a blessing the ancestors bestow upon them. </p>
<p>During one project with the Hopi tribe, we came across a rattlesnake coiled near an ancient fallen pueblo. “Long ago, one of them ancestors lived here and turned into a rattlesnake,” the elder Raleigh H. Puhuyaoma Sr. shared with me, pointing to the nearby archaeological site. “It’s now protecting the place.” The elders left an offering of corn meal to the snake. An elder later told me that it soon rained on his cornfield, a result from this spiritual exchange.</p>
<h2>Violent disputes</h2>
<p>Understanding these cultural worldviews matters greatly in discussions over protecting places in nature. The American West has a long history of battles over the control of land. We’ve seen this recently from the Bundy family’s <a href="http://www.npr.org/2016/01/05/461997746/how-protests-turned-into-an-armed-takeover-of-a-wildlife-refuge-in-oregon">takeover of the federal wildlife refuge</a> in Oregon to the <a href="http://www.salon.com/2016/07/12/war_on_federal_parks_radicalized_republicans_try_prevent_turning_bears_ears_in_utah_into_a_national_monument/">current fight over turning Bears Ears</a> – 1.9 million acres of wilderness – into a national monument in Utah.</p>
<p>Yet often these battles are less about the struggle between private and public interests, and more about basic <a href="https://theconversation.com/does-nature-have-value-beyond-what-it-provides-humans-47825">questions of nature’s purpose</a>. Do wild places have intrinsic worth? Or is the land a mere tool for human uses? </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/140767/original/image-20161006-32734-tw46du.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/140767/original/image-20161006-32734-tw46du.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/140767/original/image-20161006-32734-tw46du.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/140767/original/image-20161006-32734-tw46du.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/140767/original/image-20161006-32734-tw46du.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/140767/original/image-20161006-32734-tw46du.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/140767/original/image-20161006-32734-tw46du.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A Hopi elder making an offering to a snake to protect a sacred space.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Chip Colwell</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Much of my research has involved documenting sacred places because they are being threatened by development projects on public land. The Zuni’s sacred Mount Taylor, much of it managed by the U.S. National Forest Service, has been extensively mined for uranium, and is <a href="https://www.hcn.org/issues/41.21/dueling-claims">the cause of violent disputes</a> over whether it should be developed or protected.</p>
<p>Even though the U.S. does not legally recognize natural places as people, some legal protections exist for sacred places. Under the National Historic Preservation Act, for example, the U.S. government must take into consideration the potential impacts of certain development projects on “traditional cultural properties.” </p>
<p>This and other federal heritage laws, however, <a href="https://theconversation.com/why-the-native-american-pipeline-resistance-in-north-dakota-is-about-climate-justice-64714">provide tribes a small voice in the process</a>, little power, and rarely lead to preservation. More to the point, these laws reduce what tribes see as living places to “properties,” obscuring their inherent spiritual value.</p>
<p>In New Zealand, the Te Urewera Act offers a higher level of protection, empowering a board to be the land’s guardian. The Te Urewera Act, though, does not remove its connection to humans. With a permit, people can hunt, fish, farm and more. The public still has access to the forest. One section of the law even allows Te Urewera to be mined.</p>
<p>Te Urewera teaches us that acknowledging cultural views of places as living does not mean ending the relationship between humans and nature, but reordering it – recognizing nature’s intrinsic worth and respecting indigenous philosophies. </p>
<p>In the U.S. and elsewhere, I believe we can do better to align our legal system with the cultural expressions of the people it serves. For instance, the U.S. Congress could amend the NHPA or the American Indian Religious Freedom Act to acknowledge the deep cultural connection between tribes and natural places, and afford better protections for sacred landscapes like New Mexico’s Mount Taylor. </p>
<p>Until then, it says much about us when companies are considered people before nature is.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/64947/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Chip Colwell does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>An anthropologist argues for new ways to value sacred landscapes.Chip Colwell, Lecturer on Anthropology, University of Colorado DenverLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.