Public land and our natural heritage

I felt this sentiment many times during my two decades as a Pennsylvanian.

And it recurred earlier this decade while holding down a homestead in Vermont. (Actually, it was a condo).

I first experienced this feeling as a youthful hiker, camper and angler in New Mexico. Then the Gregory family moved to Idaho, which is blessed to have big, wide-ranging public lands.

And then came the three years that then-Air Force Capt. Alan Gregory spent in far upstate New York State and took hike after hike in the 6-million-acre Adirondack Park, more than half of which is now owned by New Yorkers.

I write about the gift that such public land offers Americans. It’s a legacy for our children and grandchildren.

To find and experience it, just take a walk into and across a wild place; a place that Nature still holds onto despite all that the boosters of using up “natural resources” have done to break it, pave it, pollute it, and build on it.

Walking into the woods on public land brings with it the means of experiencing the kind of solitude and grace and sense of belonging that only a natural landscape can offer.

For me in Pennsylvania, there were hikes along Nescopeck Creek in what became Nescopeck State Park. And the three-mile loop hike on public land atop the high ground overlooking the Lehigh River and Jim Thorpe across the valley below.

The hike in Hickory Run State Park to a cliff overlooking that river was also special. Exploring nature there once yielded the discovery of a nest in progress of Cedar Waxwings.

Across the country, though, opportunities nowadays to see and feel the land as it was shaped by Wild Nature are increasingly hard to come by. All Americans – once the booster hat of “development” is tossed aside – know this.

 That thought was amplified many times for me while living in Pennsylvania. In one instance (there were many case-studies), a butterfly census took me to the remnants of a Pocono cranberry bog, fragmented and degraded when subdivided into housing lots. The ecological heart of that natural place was forsaken to make way for a cluster of trophy homes and McMansions.

(I forget the name of the development, but it’s not far from Long Pond).

These thoughts came rushing back as I stood on public land (our public land!) in southeastern Oregon earlier this June.

Conservationist and friend Dave Foreman calls it the Big Outside. You know you have reached the Big Outside when you stand still for a moment and see only Wild Nature – the flora and fauna that Nature put there – for as far as your eyes, binoculars and telephoto lens can see.

My watching post was next to a U.S. Bureau of Land Management sign bearing the words “your public lands.” Less than a yard away was a grand-daddy Big Sagebrush, a characteristic native plant of the Great Basin Desert. Thousands and thousands more dotted the landscape all the way off to the horizon.

And the crowning touch to that viewscape: No sign anywhere of a human activity. Just Wild Nature

Lay people ask this rhetorical question whenever the topic of the public owning natural land comes to the fore: “But what good is it?”

There are a host of “good things” that come with public land: Open space, hunting and fishing, a good quality of life and sense of community, clean water and air, and the chance to reconnect with Wild Nature in this era of growth for the sake of growth and “progress.”

But this notion comes first: Because that land is part of the foundation for all the life – flora and fauna – we share the planet with.

The more natural land held in public ownership, the better for Wild Nature.

And the better for our natural heritage.

Just what is 'available' land?

Western states like Idaho, which I now call home, are rich in public lands.

And they’re a heritage today’s older generation ought to be protecting at all cost – 100 percent – as a legacy for future generations.

Americans who remember the first Persian Gulf War ought to remember the late Gen. H. Norman Schwarzkopf. A recent visit to the land/water/nature shop operated in Boise by our federal land management agencies yielded a copy of a wonderful poster titled “Wildlife and Wildlands.” It’s focused on quotes and ideas from the historic Army leader on the safe enjoyment of public land and the wildlife that lives on it.

The poster rightly focuses on the Pacific Northwest, but I’ll paraphrase the general, for his words and thoughts apply equally well to public lands in Pennsylvania and the rest of the mid-Atlantic and Northeast.

Our wildlife in the Northeast – from the Jersey and New York shores across the Delaware and Hudson rivers and on into and beyond the Allegheny Mountains – is a heritage for which we are responsible.

As my Nescopeck-area friend Autumn has reminded me, “wild land is a treasure, not a ‘resource’.”

Schwarzkopf: “I encourage each and every one of you to practice and share with others the responsible stewardship techniques listed on this poster to help make your outdoor activities rewarding and safe for both you and our precious wildlife.”

That wildlife is not represented by just the always-diminishing population of grizzle bears in and around Yellowstone National Park. It’s also the woodland salamanders, wood frogs and American toads and red-eyed vireos of forest environs protected in places like Nescopeck and Ricketts Glen state parks.

Wildlife, though, pays no heed to the artificial boundary lines written on the land by human things like property deeds and the lines of incorporation created by the formal governmental standing of boroughs, townships and cities.

The slogan that appears on many states’ wildlife license plates – “Conserving Natural Resources” – ought to instead read: “Conserving our natural heritage.”

Long-distance walking and hiking are great times to think and ponder. That’s how it was the first time I trekked – both to burn calories and get out and explore a bit – out of Conyngham borough on East County Road.

And it’s the same notion that spurs me to go for long fitness walks today across local sections of the Great Basin Desert at Mountain Home, Idaho.

Among the questions I’ve considered on recent forays is this: What do folks think about as they carve out a new road, driveway and housing pad in what, until a bulldozer showed up, was wild land replete with native flora and fauna?

It would take many an interview and an armful of questionnaires to get anywhere near the point of answering that question.

But it remains something that not only borough council members and township supervisors should consider and think through before blessing more “development” of land that real estate posters describe as
“available.”

"The things I feel very strongly about are education, the war on drugs, the environment and conservation and wildlife,” the general once told People magazine.

Bundy cows smarter than Bundy

The bigtime welfare rancher makes headlines. Wow.

Saving the wildest of our public lands

I wouldn't cast hope that The Nature Conservancy will do it. These days, TNC is likely to stock the land with cows or set in motion new logging contracts - all in a misguided attempt to raise money from the resourcism-first crowd. So, please give to the Wilderness Land Trust. See this link for a look.

Public lands: A legacy for the future

I was on Cibola National Forest land in New Mexico in 2006 when Monica and I spotted these Pronghorn. The fact that the animals were on public land made the show possible.

Poll shows most Westerners like federal control of public lands

Too bad this article doesn't also explore the attitudes of folks in the East, especially here in New England. In any case, though, the poll's findings are a stick-in-the-mud to some wacko Western politicians, including the governor of Utah.

Utah agency seeks $1M to spend against sage grouse ESA listing

In Utah, once again, science takes a  back seat to politics as the director of that state's public land "policy" office demonstrates in the quotes she gave to the author of this newspaper article. State government officials in Utah continue to find stupid ways in which to throw away taxpayers' money. Instead of working to restore and save Wild Nature,  Utah seems intent on just paving it all over.

The drought, not of the past century, but in a thousand-plus years

Lots of choice quotes in this feature-length, in-depth piece on the West's ongoing drought. The NY Times coverage is tight and focused. Good. But, even with this type of knowledge before the public, the legislators in Washington, D.C., remained gridlocked on doing anything - pro or con - regarding climate change. I wonder what Teddy Roosevelt would say and demand be done. Or Aldo Leopold. Or William O. Douglas. Or Rachel Carson. Or any of the other giants of American conservation.

Idaho F&G closes another wolf-killing program

Actually, it's just been shut down for the season. The "hunter," after all, did take out nine wolves in the wilderness of the Middle Fork, Salmon River (public land!). And this article quotes the F&G boss as saying he wants a balance to allow the region's Elk population to continue growing (so that F&G can sell more hunting licenses and get more money from them for its operating budget!). This whole thing isn't about science. And Idaho F&G, like most state wildlife agencies, likes to talk about "harvesting" game, as if they are part of a crop of corn or spuds or sugar beets. What a debacle.

How to kill a wild, free-flowing river? Dam it

That's the proposal being floated by the usual economic "growth for the sake of growth" personalities for the Gila River of the Southwest. Read about it here. The photo I've included in this post shows a bit of the landscape of the Gila's watershed.

Judge blocks shipment of oil equipment through Idaho national forest

The national forest is, of course, public land that's owned by all Americans. That makes the judge's decision explained in this article all the more forthright.

A senator's fight for a Montana stream

The senator is Max Baucus. I wish him luck in the endeavor this article focuses on, but I can't help but wonder where he was on a lot of other public land issues - things that Frank Church would have fought for and won.

Judge says BLM underreports impact of livestock grazing on public land

So get the catttle and sheep off our public lands! No wonder the old joke about "BLM" actually standing for "Bureau of Livestock and Mining" still applies.
This article has the details.

New fracking rules proposed for drilling on federal public land

A couple of things: If there isn't any human health problem with the chemicals drillers are using to collect natural gas stored in shale rock formations, like Marcellus in Pennsylvania, then why so much secrecy? Trade rules? Right. And not. We humans continue treating the Earth - our only planet - as an infinite source of "resources." it is not. I suggest a couple of fixes right off: Put a nice warm sweater on when the weather turns cold; turn the thermostat down (I get by with a setting of 60 and I am in northern Vermont!); and get up and move around. There is nothing worse than camping out in front of the boob tube.
Natural gas drilling - just like myriad other human activities - destroys and fragments habitats needed by all the other life the Creator placed on Earth. And w show our reverence for this biological diversity by wrecking it? The NY Times reports on the Obama administrations latest compromise on gas drilling on federal public lands. Sad.

Citing 'environmental terrorism,' Oregon legisltors go after tree-sitters

Just how in the hell does sitting in a tree's crown to protect it from a chainsaw equate to "terrorism?" This is either a case of a headline writer who's been watching too much Tee Vee or a simple, blatant "scaredy cat" journalism. Either way is not the point. That would be the forest.And just how sad it is that we as a society are now forgetting the forest for the trees. Here's he idiotic headline.

Slow second-term start for Obama on consevation isues

I held big hopes for Mr. Obama's second term: He would stop worrying about campaigning and finally take strong and decisive steps to reign-in climate change; would buy out private in-holdings inside national wildlife refuges and national parks, resoire :conservation as a central focus of his domestic agenda, and start speaking strongly and decisively against big polluters and their cash.
But it was not to be, as this article explains in painful depth.

Idaho pols stop short of endorsing federal land transfer

The state-level politicians in Idaho and Utah, and now Nevada, keep on tinkering with the idea of having fedearl public lands within their borders transferred to state management. I can visualize all sorts of business-happy blight coming from this: Billboards, not cottonwood trees, gracing the landscape of the Morley Nelson Snake River Birds of Prey National Conservation Area south of Boise; oil and gas wells dotting the Great Basin Desert in all three states; converting the fake lake reservoirs behind hydro dams like American Falls into Jet Ski playgrounds (with motels and grab-and-go store gas stations dotting the shoreline where American white pelicans once lived their lives. You can read about the Idaho clowns right here.

NM legislation demands title to public lands in state

This is the same kind of crap tried by Utah "lawmakers." Never mind that federal public lands in New Mexico and all the other states, too, are owned, in part, by all taxpaying Americans, like me in Vermont. The parochial grandstanding of state-level politicians when it comes to public land is astounding.