Babbitt Looks to Grand Canyon to Preserve more Land
http://forests.org/-- Forest Conservation Archives
12/23/98
*******************************
RELAYED TEXT STARTS HERE:
Title: Babbitt Looks to Grand Canyon to Preserve more Land
Source: Earth Times News Service
Status: Copyrighted, contact source to reprint
Date: 12/23/98
Byline: Mark Muro
Pine-studden volcanoes, multicolored gorges, a vast pooling
silence: Those are the resources US Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt
has begun studying for a new 400,000 acre national monument above the
Grand Canyon's North Rim in Arizona.
Encompassing the remote Shivwits Plateau, such a new national reserve
would be another conservation coup in America's rugged Southwest. Yet
do not think Babbitt proposes another dead-of-night "land-grab" such
as critics branded President Clinton's 1996 election-season creation
of Utah's Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument. More
strategically, Babbitt has begun the work of building local consensus
around his plan, and in doing so he has demonstrated the new method of
land preservation.
Action is advisable because this vastness of pinyon pine and red rock,
though now extremely remote, sprawls just four hours from booming Las
Vegas. That means the pressures of retirement "ranchettes" and wildcat
roadways carved by off-highway vehicles will soon add to the potential
for uranium and copper mining in the area. For that reason prudence
dictates preservation before the land is discovered by the general
public and pressure mounts to compromise it.
Yet early action need not mean highhanded action that later
stumbles--which is why Babbitt's deference to local sentiments seems
so promising. Provided local consultation does not talk the initiative
into limbo, a year of talking with the local people who use the land
now can only help the cause. Already Babbitt has met rural interests
halfway by rejecting a simple expansion of Grand Canyon National Park
as a way to achieve his conservation goals. Park designation would end
such traditional cultural pursuits as hunting and ranching, hence
Babbitt's promotion of the less stringent "monument" status as a way
of barring home construction and mining but not those other, less
intrusive uses.
But a year of consultation on these and other topics would be even
more helpful. By palavering with ranchers, hunters, rural politicians
in the areas and others, Babbitt might actually be able to secure the
support of the rural folks who in American politics often hold
disproportionate sway. In this fashion, the Secretary might save
himself the kind of backlash that greeted the Grand Staircase move and
has undermined the conservation mission of recent land set-asides in
the Southern California deserts.
But then, these are questions of tactics, while a potential Shivwits
National Monument is a question of ecosystem health, natural quiet and
the best way to hold a special place together. Preservation, from that
perspective, is imperative. So it is encouraging to see America's
government working in ways that might actually get such preservation
done. No longer can conservation be imposed only by central
governments; also it needs the support of local communities if it to
flourish.
Copyright c 1998 The Earth Times All rights reserved.
References
1. mailto:comments2-12-23@earthtimes.org
2. http://www.earthtimes.org/lowgraphics.htm