The Great American
Commons
Tim Starr #45727
5/5/06
Donald Worster in “The Wealth of Nature” observed that, nowhere in the United
States Constitution is land specifically mentioned. This fact was surprising to him and
should be to most Americans. Worster continues to explain that at the time of the
constitution’s inception the prospect of individuals owning their land outright was rescue
from the tyranny of the English Crown and thus the path to democratic salvation.
Contrary to these beliefs the private ownership of land in the United States has lead to
extremely undemocratic conditions as exemplified by the hugely disproportionate amount
of wealth held by an incredibly small number of people in the US. For those with this
wealth, it has been far too easy for them to push legislation that only further serves to
fatten their wallets.
Through this mess and despite no formal accommodations for it in any levels of
government, large pieces of the United States’ land has been placed under varying levels
of protection. This “Great Commons” as Worster refers to it as, serves to reinforce what
was at the heart of the decision to explicitly exclude land policy. It was the central idea
that the land was to be used for the benefit of the American people. The conclusions
politicians made at the time turned out to not be accurate because unlike they had hoped
individual ownership has resulting in destruction and rapacious behavior on America’s
land.
This destruction of both private and public land is clearly illustrated in the
numerous reading on western ranching. As was clearly illustrated in The article
“Nevada’s ugly tug-of-war” people are willing to violently defend what they believe to
be their rights to do what they wish with their private land. Furthermore the ranchers
utilizing public land to graze cattle also believe they have certain rights and that the
government, at all different levels have no right to tell them how to graze their cattle. All
this despite that a majority of the land they graze on are public holdings.
One cannot blame the ranchers for their position, after all many families still have
flyers dating back nearly one-hundred years promising “irrigated homestead lands” and
that “the land is free. Water Rights furnished by the U.S. Reclamation Server” and that
lastly, “Water Supply…. is permanent and assured”. This is just one such illustrative
example given in the article “No final solutions for farmers”. With such guarantees given
by the government itself, how can one argue with ranchers who are feeling cheated or
deprived of their “rights” to the land? Although this article doesn’t deal directly with land
management and policy it deals with the tightly interconnected issue of water rights and
how these too should be considered during land management decision making. Some
progress is being made as shown in “A tale of two ranches”, but often it’s only on the
terms of the ranchers. This can mean in the mutual cooperation and a progressive outlook
on the future of the lands and the ranches on them in the case of the Tiptons. Or the
stubborn and contemporary ways and views of rancher Paul Inchauspe.
In light of the difficulties of managing ranches new methods to do so have been a
boon in certain desirable rural areas of the west. Through the use of land easements to
reduce tax overhead for the current ranch owners, the goal of conserving large, undivided
plots of land has been quite successful. In Gunnison county alone over 16,000 acres of
land has been secured for preservation purposes through land easements at the time of the
writing of the article, “Who Will Take Over the Ranch?”. The success of land easements
in Crested Butte and Gunnison County in general may not be shared by many other rural
western towns. One of the major obstacles to land easements is cash flow. Buying land
outright is expensive. The success of land easements in Crested Butte can in large part be
attributed to the high land values and the people in the area’s willingness to preserve the
openness of the area and thus scenic value. This is all implicitly possible due to these
individuals having deep pockets to donate to the funds which do the actual buying of
land.
This is all in an effort perhaps to save these small rural towns from a fate similar
to that of Aspen. Here is where we can see how political power and a large dose of
money can transform a once pristine, scenic area in to, dare I say, a miniature Los
Angeles. The urban sprawl usually associated with dense urban areas is being observed in
much less densely populated areas. In the case of Aspen once it’s beauty was discovered
and wealthy individuals began building second homes there an entire service industry set
up shop in order to cater to their expensive tastes. What could’ve been a relatively
beneficial symbiotic relationship has been turned in to an extortive relationship similar in
some ways to the practices of large agribusiness in southern California. After the initial
wave of outside money there was the pop-culture and the “me-too” syndrome that
followed. This delivered the final blow to any remaining small town feel of Aspen had.
Aspen had transformed into a behemoth of an economic force based almost primarily
around the service industry while any real revenue generated from tourism has been
trivialized by the extravagant spending of wealthy part-time residents.
In many cases Aspen is what is to be avoided and the very reason land easements
have become so popular. With technology more easily allowing already wealthy
individuals to seek more scenic and calm towns to make their homes and raise their
families they bring with them the threat of destroyed the very thing they have sought out.
Often times these relatively new residents and their conservation efforts come in to
conflict with residents who have relied more heavily on tradition extractive industries to
pay the bills. In an even more interesting twist, even newer residents resent the “middle”
residents for trying to block new development. This I relate to immigration in the US and
how there was fierce opposition to “New Immigrants” by the “Old Immigrants” who in
reality had only themselves been in the country for a matter of years.
Land easements alone only account for a small amount of the total public lands in
the US. Major national parks were setup as early as 1872 with the creation of
Yellowstone park which encompassed 2 million acres (Babbit) at its time of creation.
Eighteen years later Yosemite National Park was created after a long fight by the heroic
preservationist, John Muir. From here on out The United States Congress the presidents
of the United States added huge amounts of public lands. Theodore Roosevelt alone
added 172 million acres in his seven years while in office. One important point to keep in
mind though is that the use of these public lands was not always clearly defined.
Furthermore companies realized that often times they could simply get away with
operating extractive industries on publicly held land with little resistance or attention
paid. Further legislation clarified how certain areas were to be protected and what their
purpose was to actually be.
Edward Abbey writing about Arches National Park in Utah gives us a real human
side to the all the madness in development, land grabbing and the very politics that go in
to conservation and preservation. Through Abbey’s experience in the desert both with the
actual geography and the politics that inevitably come with his duties as a park ranger,
one gets the sense of urgency in truly protecting areas. Abbey discusses the inevitability
of development and American’s fixation on the automobile and the idea that it is better to
see more than to take your time and truly experience the wilderness.
He discusses many emotional moments such as enjoying a fire fueled by juniper
and the aroma which is produced that he believes to be “the sweetest fragrance on earth”.
Certainly Abbey has no desire for Arches to become more accessible. The idea of even
having a fire in a majority of National Parks is foreign to me. Most national parks today
require when backpacking that only fuel stoves be used. This is in response to the
popularity of the parks, even relatively isolated parks, and to the delicate ecosystem they
really are. After all if even 10,000 people hike the same trail in a year the wood found,
especially in an arid setting like Arches would surely be depleted and a part of the natural
scenic beauty would die. I recall hiking in Big Bend National park in Texas with my
Uncle when I was 13 and how backpackers were required to pack out their used toilet
paper and you were encouraged to even pack out your excrement. The dedication to
preservation of the land in its utmost virgin state is one of the park’s strong points and
helps to limit visitation. This could be viewed as elitist but this in no way shuts off access
to the park if you are dedicated to seeing it’s grandeur. Despite this all, access to the park
was relatively easy and one especially breathtaking view was within a mile of the main
visitor’s center.
One experience Abbey recalls is being disturbed from one of his peaceful states
by the sound of a vehicle coming from a direction which had no roads. Once the vehicle
was clearly identified he saw that it was driving illegally in the park, after all motor
vehicle use was limited and in his time most access roads were only dirt roads. This was
going to inevitable change as he was soon to find out. He wanted to ticket the individuals
for driving illegally but by the time he was ready to chase after them they showed up at
his doorstep. The jeep was actually a government vehicle with three engineers in it who
had been surveying the park for paved road development. Abbey was a good host to the
men despite his utter disdain for making access to the park via motorized vehicles any
easier.
Abbey’s anger and contempt for most Americans is shared by myself although I
would say I am not as zealous as him. Abbey heavily criticizes the urge for people to
demand that scenic areas be paved out and made easily accessible. Abbey recognizes that
often time it is a play for money. Roads give incentive to people to travel and thus
consume more. Consume more fuel for their car, more services in the form of hotels,
consume more food and other tourist services. Abbey even proposes ways in which the
scenic nature of the parks could be preserved while eliminating a large portion of the
motorized traffic. He suggests that shuttle services could be utilized and eating and loding
establishments could still offer their services because after all the infrastructure is already
there. Just limit its use.
Through Abbey’s conversations and my own experience as well often times
people simply don’t understand the emotional argument put forth so strongly by Abbey
and countless others. People don’t realize that bringing more people to one “scenic” area
isn’t necessarily a positive thing. After all if you put roads through everything how is
physically going to a location and “experiencing” the outdoors much different from
experiencing some sort of scale model or a museum exhibit? What makes these places
scenic and special is their very isolation, vastness and wildness. This tends to scare
people and they would rather climb back in to their cars and go on their way seeing all
there is to see while experiencing nothing. This is Industrial Tourism.
Bringing in the elements of Native Americans complicates things as well. After
all they occupied the land well before any European settlers appeared. Their land was
systematically taken from them and often they were forced on miserable reservations
which were small fractions of the land the tribes previously used. Today the Native
Americans are gaining ground in reclaiming what is legally theirs through treaties with
the Federal Government. The fights have not been easy but they continue because it is in
the deep interest of the Native Americans to reclaim their ancestral lands.
At the end of the day, the political climate currently points us back towards
extractive industries and destructive practices that has caused so much turmoil in the
country. However the long term outlook would appear that perhaps we will have large
areas preserved for their scenic beauty but it is not all it’s cracked up to be. The choking
of highways to these areas and what seems like the inevitable service industry that crops
up anywhere there are people to be served will prove to defeat the very purpose of these
parks. Perhaps the only truly untouched lands will be those that are truly difficult to gain
access to. Areas which the cost is simply too exorbitant to provide universal (read
motorized) access to will survive the onslaught of tourists. After all I am myself, visiting
a popular national park as backpacker, a tourist contributing to the already overcrowding
situation. Perhaps I will choose to visit one of the secluded parks instead and find peace
and insight there. However it is a shame to think I must pick and choose my locations
based on crowds and permit availability. At the end of the day it is difficult to explain
how making access to certain areas relatively challenging can actually enhance one’s
enjoyment of an area. As places become more and more popular their intrinsic value is
lost, that of wildness and seclusion and it is superseded by the value attached by the
media and other ideas popular culture decides to cultivate. Either way “hardcore”
preservationists will come off as being elitists and perhaps they are but if you are ever
lucky enough to experience the outdoors in their true depth and beauty you too will
probably become a bit of an elitist as well.