Two Books

(This column was published on January 13, 1997.)

   Two books have forced me to rethink some prevalent attitudes toward 
opponents of environmentalism. I recommend both to environmental activists, 
the first with serious reservations. Both provide insights into how anti-
conservationists think -- and how environmentalists can create additional 
problems by failing to consider their opponents' views.

   The first is Peter Bowen's "Wolf, No Wolf," a mystery novel. It is written 
from a point of view well to the right of Rush Limbaugh and "Wise Use" 
proponents and closer to that of the Montana militia.

   In the story two militant opponents of cattle grazing on public lands shoot 
several cows they find on federal property. The local response is immediate. 
The outsiders are murdered and their car dumped over a cliff. In a later 
episode after a town meeting broken up by locals who pelt Fish and Wildlife 
representatives with manure, five of these agents, who are introducing wolves 
to a nearby mountain area, are shot in the back, killed along with the animals 
they are releasing.

   It is the responsibility of the Meti detective Gabriel DuPre to solve these 
murders and the associated murder of an FBI agent. He does so reluctantly, 
because the good ol' boys who did these deeds are among his friends and 
neighbors. In each case the murderers -- there are several as the crimes were 
separately committed -- are sympathetically portrayed. One, for example, is a 
decorated war veteran who, when found out, swallows a suicide pill to avoid 
embarrassing his family. He has terminal cancer anyway.

   Rather gamey stuff. But there are comments that should be taken very 
seriously. Consider the French-Canadian's thoughts: "None of this, it would 
have happened, those people cared enough about what was here, find out a 
little what it is before they come. It is like you are leaned over your 
kitchen table some Sunday morning, bunch of preachers kick your door down, 
bang a gong make your headache worse, go through your whole house and when 
they are done then they stay, how nice, we will just live here, help you. You 
can be just like us."

   A far more positive book is "The Prairie Keepers" by wildlife biologist 
Marcy Houle, about her study of hawks in eastern Oregon's Zumwalt Prairie. She 
was surprised to find that the grasslands grazed by the cows of local ranchers 
support more diversity than nearby federal areas from which cattle are 
excluded.

   "With sadness," she says, "I saw the bitter war over the western grasslands 
being waged between two disparate cultures -- environmentalists and ranchers 
-- for what it is: a tragic irony. If the truth were only realized, these two 
archfoes would see they are actually allies in the fight to save rangelands 
from a future neither side wants.

   "Grazing," she continues, "could have varying results. Some, 
unquestionably, could be detrimental to the resource. These are usually the 
examples put in front of the public, and those on which decisions are made. 
But, as evidenced by my Zumwalt findings, grazing can richly enhance wildlife 
habitat."

   And she concludes, "In the face of growing population and urbanization, it 
will take a new, unprecedented kind of cooperation and communication between 
the public and private sector for us to preserve biodiversity. With the myriad 
turf matches between agencies and people, this will be an overwhelming task. 
But if we don't try, we chance to lose rural places like the Zumwalt to the 
impending suburbanization of the West."

   These books not only made me rethink some widely held attitudes toward 
prairie conservation, but they strongly reinforce my belief that -- in 
environmentalism as elsewhere -- cooperation is a better path than 
confrontation.