2002 Starker Lecture Transcripts
Speaking Western: Honest Conversations
in the New West
Richard L. Knight
Department of Forest, Rangeland, and
Watershed Stewardship
Colorado State University
Fort Collins, CO
The frontiers have been explored and crossed. It is probably time we settled
down. It is probably time we looked around us instead of looking ahead. We
have no business, any longer, in being impatient with history. We need to
know our history in much greater depth…Plunging into the future through
a landscape that had no history, we did both the country and ourselves some
harm along with some good. Neither the country nor the society we built out
of it can be healthy until we stop raiding and running, and learn to be quiet
part of the time, and acquire the sense not of ownership but of belonging.(Stegner
1992:205-206).
The New Old West
The American West is a new place; increasingly composed of people who have
just arrived from somewhere else. Indeed, the concept of the "floating
baseline" ensures our region will continue to fill up with people from
somewhere else. Because the quality of life is so much better here than it
is elsewhere, people will continue to leave where they live and move to the
West, where the cost of living, traffic congestion, crime rate, and pollution
are less than where they are from. Not surprisingly, nine of the ten fastest-growing
states are in the West, as are the fastest-growing counties and the “most
desirable places to live, work, retire...”
The upshot of this is we live in a New West, a quite different place from
what it was just a short time ago. This New West is presently going through
a transition
from what might be called a “workscape,” where people dress in
canvas and denim, to a “playscape,” where they are more likely
to be seen in fleece and Lycra. Historically, the main economies of the
intermountain West were extractive in origin. Today, we see the industries
of logging,
mining, water development, and ranching being replaced by the newer amenity-based
economies
related to technology and service jobs (Knight 1997).
The most important generalization that emerges from this phenomenal shift
in demographics is that of land-use changes on both private and public
lands.
And these changes are emphasized because land ownership in our region
is blended; half public and half private. In the not-too-distant past,
private lands beyond
city limits were allocated to utilitarian uses; today their emerging
best use is increasingly residential and commercial development. Whereas
the public
lands were historically devoted to extractive uses, today their highest
and best use has been decreed to be outdoor recreation in all its myriad
forms,
from passive to mechanized to motorized.
Let me hasten to say that I am speaking of transitions, not of absolutes
that have already taken place everywhere across our region. True,
there are still
sectors of public and private lands in the West where ranching or
logging or energy development is still the principle use. What I speak
of are
trends that
we are in the middle of, though increasingly these conversions in
land use have already occurred. In Colorado, over 270,000 acres of private
land are
converted annually from farming and ranching to residential and commercial
development. On the public lands, we see less logging, mining, and
grazing every year as recreationists descend on our state and federal
lands,
fully motorized and looking for a week or weekend of happiness away
from our
region’s
increasingly congested and stressful cities.
If you agree with me that we are living during a period of rapid
land-use change that affects equally our public and private landscapes,
then
let me suggest
that we are as much in need of a land ethic now as at any other time
in our history. And we are also in desperate need of a consumption
ethic, because
our region’s unbridled growth and expansion is a byproduct of unprecedented
consumption, sanctioned by a remarkably complacent attitude of denial,
of belief that we can continue to grow this New West without limits.
First, let us examine whether the economies of the New West are benign
or equally damaging to our region's natural heritage as the traditional
extractive uses
that so defined the Old West.
Recreation and Residential Development: Extractives Uses Under Different
Names?
First, the public lands. Outdoor recreation, it turns out, has the
same potential to affect biodiversity as have the traditional land
uses of
logging, mining,
water development, and livestock grazing, albeit in different ways
(Knight and Gutzwiller 1995). On public lands, outdoor recreation
is second only
to water development as the chief culprit in the decline of federally
threatened
and endangered species (Losos et al. 1995). On all lands, public
and private, outdoor recreation is the fourth leading cause for the
decline
of federally
listed species (Czech et al. 2000).
Let me be quick to point out, for those of us who recreate passively
while hiking, rock climbing, or dry-fly fishing, that a further breakdown
of
which recreation activities harm native species is unnecessary. We
are all at fault,
whether we mountain-bike or dirt-bike across our region’s public lands
(Knight and Cole 1995, Losos et al. 1995). So, although we may call outdoor
recreation an amenity use, it is as culpable as logging or dam-building in
its ability to affect populations of species that help define our region’s
natural diversity.
What about residential and commercial development on private lands?
Do these activities alter our natural heritage as, belatedly, we
are discovering
outdoor
recreation does? Yes, and then some. Exurban development is the second
leading cause across America, second only to invasive species, for
the decline in federally
threatened and endangered species (Czech et al. 2000). Perhaps this
is not too surprising. After all, if we transplanted a typical city
suburb
from town
to country, might we not expect to see more robins, starlings, raccoons
and skunks, and fewer (if any!) bobcats, badgers, orange-crowned
warblers, and
lark buntings? Research on species that thrive and those that decline
near rural ranchettes suggests that residential development away
from city limits
favors generalist or human-adapted species and results in the displacement
of specialist or human-sensitive species (Odell and Knight 2001).
As we convert the privately owned, once rural parts of the West to
ranchette
developments
as vast as the ranches that once occupied the land, we will see a
landscape increasingly populated with generalist species, of little
conservation
concern other than their weedy capacity to displace more-sensitive
species whose evolutionary
history does not allow them to successfully compete with the newcomers.
A quick aside for those of you who may think we can sacrifice our
rural private lands, yet still protect our region's natural heritage
on its
public lands.
Our public lands are the least productive, with the harshest climates
and the least-fertile soils. The private lands of the West are where
we find
the highest
primary productivity, because they are situated at the lowest elevations
with the richest soils (Scott et al. 2001). The early settlers weren’t
fools.
One further note for those of you who wonder why NGOs are working
with ranchers across the West to keep their ranches vital economic
units
and out of development.
In an ongoing study with the Natural Resources Conservation Service,
we are examining bird, plant, and mammal communities across the three
principal land
uses of the New West other than metropolitan areas: protected areas,
ranches, and ranchette developments. Perhaps not too surprisingly,
we are finding that
private-land ranches support a biodiversity quite similar to that
found on protected areas. Ranchette landscapes, however, have a quite
different
collection
of fauna and flora, more closely approximating what would be found
in town than in the country (Knight 2002).
Ethics of Land and Consumption
If these results surprise you, please know that you are not alone.
My sense is that many individuals and organizations have worked long
and
hard to
either eliminate or modify the traditional extractive uses in the
West. Their primary
motivation, I suspect, was the belief that if we have less utilitarian
use in our region, we would have a more pristine and natural landscape
in which
to live, work, and enjoy recreation. I can imagine the disappointment
among those who believe this when they discover that the uses we
have replaced
them with also come with great ecological costs. When one devotes
a career to stopping
rampant logging, inappropriate grazing, and wholesale water development
and mining, one should expect to see the one’s home region better
off.
This thinking, however, is far too simplistic. In reality, as we
replace the Old West with a New West, we run a great risk of continuing
to
live here in
a nonsustainable fashion, jeopardizing our region’s natural heritage
(Knight and Landres 1998). This is where we finally confront the need for
a land ethic, a consumption ethic, and an honest conversation.
Aldo Leopold gave us the land ethic. What he had in mind can be captured
in a variety of exerpts from his written legacy (Meine and Knight
1999). These
include:
-
“ a universal symbiosis with land, economic and aesthetic,
public and private”
“ a protest against destructive land use that seeks
to preserve both the utility and beauty of the landscape"
“ a harmony between men and land"
And my favorite:
We end, I think, at what might be called the standard paradox of the twentieth
century: our tools are better than we are, and grow better faster
than we do. They suffice to crack the atom, to command the tides. But they
do
not suffice
for the oldest task in human history: to live on a piece of land
without spoiling it.
What Leopold was asking is that we acknowledge our responsibilities to
ensure land health. This acknowledgement entails stewardship--placing
our obligations
to sustainable uses of natural resources ahead of our individual
rights to treat natural resources however we wish. This is a tall order
indeed,
for
the words “property” and “rights” are emblazoned across
our Constitution, while the words “land” and “responsibilities” cannot
be found within this august document.
You can easily see how Leopold’s philosophy of an ethical responsibility
toward the land is captured today in the concept of ecosystem management (Knight
1996). Within ecosystem management is the acknowledgment that land uses, both
extractive and recreational, are welcome, but only if they are done in a sustainable
way. The heart of Leopold’s land ethic insists that we have an ethical
obligation to ensure that land remains capable of supporting both healthy
natural communities and healthy human communities.
What about a consumption ethic? Are we living within our ecological
footprint? Across the New West that we inhabit, are we consuming
resources and producing
wastes in keeping with the amount of productive land and water required
to generate the resources and assimilate the wastes?
I sense not. Since 1970, the size of U.S. families has declined by
16%, yet house size has increased by 48%. From 1965 to 1999, annual
paper
consumption
increased by 120%, and annual per-capita consumption of paper increased
from 468 to 750 pounds. And, not surprisingly, this is occurring
at the same time
that the amount of forest products taken from our public lands has
plummeted. Between 1987 and 1997, federal timber harvest dropped
70%, from about
13 billion board feet to 4 billion board feet annually (MacCleery
2000).
As we speak, citizens of America, including parts of the American
West, are involved in a national dialogue about producing more energy
to
match our rapacious
consumption levels. The concept of conservation and living within
our limits was initially discarded by the present administration
as a matter
of personal
virtue. In a more thoughtful country, the concept of conservation
would fit nicely within a party of conservatives.
I don’t mean to take cheap shots at partisan politics, but the present
energy “crisis” is a good example of the need for a consumption
ethic to balance a land ethic. After all, if wood products, food, energy, and
minerals don’t come from within our country, they must come from
elsewhere. Across our region and nation, there are serious conversations
about offshore
production of all of these natural resources. From where I stand, it seems
both unfair and hypocritical that the best and highest use of our public
lands is for play, and that of our private lands is for homes.
Ask yourself this question the next time you are faced with choices
of resource consumption, whether at the mall or at the thermostat.
Should
the resources
you use come from where you live, or should they come from somewhere
afar, from a country where environmental regulations may be not only
more lax but
less well enforced?
So, in contrasting a land ethic and a consumption ethic, allow me
to make these observations. In 1930, nearly half of all Americans
lived
on farms.
Today fewer
than 2% of us are farmers, foresters, and ranchers. Which, therefore,
is easier--a land ethic or a consumption ethic? Leopold wrote, “A farmer who clears
the woods off a 75% slope, turns his cows into the clearing, and dumps its
rainfall, rocks, and soil into the community creek, is still a respected member
of society.” He lamented the fact that we were still so far from a land
ethic (Meine and Knight 1999). If you will indulge me, I might paraphrase Leopold
and say, "A ranchette dweller who lives in a 4,000-square-foot home, owns
three cars, and commutes to work alone is still a respected member of society." Should
either be respected members of society? Times are more complicated today
than when Leopold was struggling with how to express the need for ethical
relations
between human and natural communities. Today we need not only a land ethic
but also a consumption ethic, for we are increasingly not of the land,
but of the mall.
The Time for Honest Conversations
Wallace Stegner wrote, “We are the unfinished product of a long beginning.” (Stegner
and Stegner 1981). Our region is not the same place it was only a decade ago.
It is filling up, and the traditional cultures, dating back to the first Americans,
are changing as rapidly as at any time in our history. There is a dire need
to begin honest conversations. For too long we have been dishonest in our dealings
with each other and with those from outside our region. We have arrived at
a point in Western history where conversations about Western lands and land
health on private lands and on public lands are entwined and cannot be separated.
Private and public lands must be dealt with simultaneously when discussing
the future of the New West. The science informing these discussions needs to
be accurate, not value-driven, and the conversations about cultural and natural
history need to be honest, not mythologized. Science is important in these
discussions, but to be useful, the science must be done carefully so that the
answers are the best we can get. All of us need to look better and listen more
carefully as we struggle to match Stegner’s challenge for us to make
a society that matches our scenery (Knight and Bates 1995).
There are those among us who actively champion the far ends of the
political spectrum. Some Westerners want the public and private lands
free of manure,
cows, clearcuts, and pumpjacks because they want these places for
their own uses, such as mountain biking and river rafting. They want
ranchers,
loggers,
and miners off the Western ranges and forests because they believe
what others have told them, that cows sandblast land and that loggers
and
miners denude
hillsides and leave it to wash away into our waterways.
What about the far right? The New Federalists who are obsessed with
spreading their private-property rights hysteria? They are as intolerant
as the
Far Left of collaborative conservation efforts in the New West that
strive to bring
ranchers, scientists, and environmentalists together. These powerful
players in the West throw out incendiary remarks about wildland protection
and government
land grabs as easily as their counterparts reflexively oppose appropriate
grazing and logging. Thank goodness for those in the radical center
who strive to build
connections across landscapes, connections that run through human
and natural communities and across socio-political chasms. Perhaps
the
wing nuts at either
ends of this human spectrum stir up dissent because they find it
easier and more profitable to simplify, divide, demean, and demonize.
Perhaps it all comes down to values--of the rancher, the urban environmentalist,
the scientist, and the government employee. Each of us is in love
with the West, its punctuated geography, its rich cultures, its wildlife,
and its heart-rending
beauty that stretches further than our imaginings. All of us will
have
to change in order to make this a place with vibrant human and natural
communities. We
can do that. One only needs to look at the history of natural resources
management, a continuing evolution which increasingly shows concern
for all of our natural
heritage. Those with extremely narrow ideologies, those on the far
right and far left, may never join us. The rest of us should, perhaps,
meet
halfway,
or nearly so. The need of the moment is to find common ground on
which to work for common good. Good-faith efforts, and a retreat
from demonization
and demagoguery,
are what we need today.
If it makes what I have written any more palatable, let me admit
where my values come from. My wife and I live in a valley along the
northern
end of
the Colorado
Front Range. Our neighbors and friends are ranching families and
those who live on ranchettes. Over the years we have come together
to dance,
eat, be
neighbors, and chart a common ground. Whether working together in
our weed cooperative, developing a place-based education program
in the
valley school,
or fencing out overgrazed riparian areas, we are working together
to become a place where people cooperate, collaborate, and show communitarian
tendencies,
rather than a place where they engage in ferocious combat, litigation,
and confrontation. We are home, we have our hands in the soil and
our
eyes on
the hills that comfort us. In our imperfect lives, we work together
to build a
community that will sustain us and our children, for we understand
that we belong to the land far more than we will ever own it. We
strive together
in a cooperative enterprise to steward our lands for all of God’s children
and all of God’s creatures. Perhaps that it why I write as I do.
Literature Cited
Czech, B., P.R. Krausman, and P.K. Devers. 2000. Economic associations
among causes of species endangerment in the United States. BioScience
50:593-601.
Knight, R.L. 1996. Aldo Leopold, the land ethic, and ecosystem management.
Journal of Wildlife Management 60:471-474.
Knight, R.L. 1997. Field report from the new American West. Pp. 181-200
in Wallace Stegner and the continental vision (C. Meine, ed.). Island
Press, Washington,
DC.
Knight, R.L. 2002. The ecology of ranching. Pp. 123-144 in Ranching
west of the 100th meridian (R. L. Knight, W. Gilgert and E. Marston,
eds.).
Island
Press, Washington, DC
Knight, R.L., and S.F. Bates(eds). 1995. A new century for natural
resources management. Island Press, Washington, DC
Knight, R.L., and D.N. Cole. 1995. Wildlife responses to recreationists.
Pp. 51-69 in +Knight, R.L., and K.J. Gutzwiller (eds). 1995. Wildlife
and recreationists.
Island Press, Washington, DC
Knight, R.L., and P.B. Landres (eds). 1998. Stewardship across boundaries.
Island Press, Washington, DC
Losos, E., J. Hayes, A. Philips, D. Wilcove, and C. Alkire. 1995.
Taxpayer-subsidized resource extraction harms species. BioScience
45:446-455.
MacCleery, D.W. 2000. Aldo Leopold's land ethic: is it only half
a loaf? Journal of Forestry
Meine, C., and R. L. Knight (eds.). 1999. The essential Aldo Leopold:
quotations and commentaries. University of Wisconsin Press, Madison.
Odell, E., and R. L. Knight. 2001. Songbird and medium-sized mammal
communities associated with exurban development in Pitkin County,
CO. Conservation
Biology x:xxx-xxx.
Scott, J. M., R. J. F. Abbitt, and C. R. Groves. 2001. What are we
protecting? Conservation Biology in Practice 2:18-19.
Stegner, W. 1992. Where the bluebird sings to the lemonade springs:
living and writing in the West. Random House, NY.
Stegner, W., and P. Stegner. 1981. American places. Dutton, NY.
