Writing by Erica Goad
Epiphany 2: Ranching and the Activist's Toolbox
Other Writing:
» Vehi
» Owens Lake: Reaction
» Tree Stories
Epiphany 1: Gaia Revisited
Our bodies are utterly amazing. Can you believe that a bag of cells, comprised of 70% of water, can work symphonically to create sentience, self-knowledge, and complete functionality? Stop and admire the strength and mobility of your fingers, the phenomenon of your sight, and the gumption of your organs. It is no wonder that our culture is obsessed with our bodies.
Every day we are inundated with images of beautiful people, with supplement infomercials, with image-oriented reality shows. Advertisements are rarely successful without syllogism or sex appeal. Our fascination extends beyond leggy celebrities and muscled athletes; we are also grossly captivated by broken or ill bodies. Sagas of weight loss and plastic surgery, struggles with obesity and a lack of self-control make ratings skyrocket. How we judge these people, and consequently how we judge ourselves is indicative of our fascination with all things visceral. Yet there is certainly a distinction between truly good and bad health practices and what the media tells us. After being immersed in the natural world for the last few weeks, it has become clear to me that these same wonders of corporeal function and good principles of care are fungible in both human body and the environment.
Standing atop a ridge in the eastern Sierra Nevada, the topography becomes alive in my mind. Its vibrancy draws me in, pulling my eyes to the mirrored lake down below. In its reflection, I see that the granite cliffs supporting me are vertebrae, columnar joints extending upward in quintessential stability. The mountains themselves are a spine, adjoining horizons with craggy certainty; true structure in the skyline. As I notice my own reflection, my heart straining to sustain me in this hypoxic environment, I realize the lake itself is a cardiological miracle. The blood of the West trickles from its mighty chambers to the expectant life below. The venous rivers cascade through drainages and into capillary valleys, leaving vitality in their wake. They spread web-like, nourishment in every drop. The dead foxtail pines are skeletal towers, their arms and roots extending in rigid and powerful reception. The living pinyon pines in canyons below exult in pulmonary majesty, imbibing on carbon dioxide like my own lungs are thirsting for oxygen.
The trees, plants, and animals are cells, each performing its own duty, reproducing for the sake of persistence. As infection, old age, or trauma strikes, new life naturally regenerates in its place. The ecosystems are models of homeostasis, systematic yet dynamic in self-regulation. The organs of the ecosystem are each of its components, individually vital and synchronizing to create a spectacular whole. In my mind, the West is not a classic beauty, but stunning in its intrigue and unique in its variance. Cavernous wrinkles join with smooth sands; curvaceous foothills meet tenacious expanses of sinewy prairies. From my perch on the backbone of the Sierra, I think on the values and attention we shower upon our bodies and how the body of the land is lacking in them.
I’m sure we can all recall lessons of health administered to us by our parents from some of our earliest memories. Although bitter when I was younger that I couldn’t eat Froot Loops and ice cream whenever I wanted to, I am now thankful to my parents for their insistence on my general good health. We are taught to eat well to live well with a balanced diet. Exercise is essential to a healthy mind and body. Use, but don’t abuse. These maxims, as often opposed to media standards, are important for maintaining a fruitful and fulfilling life. If longevity is our goal, we have to treat our bodies in a way that will sustain us into the future. Otherwise, we shall become sick, uninspired, and will eventually fade away. The land, like us, can also fall ill.
Owens Lake has been starved. Diversion of the water there acted as an effective tourniquet, malnourishing the valley until its vitality drained and it withered. All we are left with is a ghost of what once was, salty bones crusted with the toxic dust of good intentions. Many lakes in the Great Basin have suffered a comparable fate. As if afflicted with a terminal disease, these terminal lakes are doomed to die without help. Similarly, the Forest Service’s policies of fire suppression in Colorado’s forests, originally thought to be sound forest management, have compounded the effects of drought and climate change, leading to an unprecedented epidemic of mountain pine beetle. Entire mountainsides of pine are dead, and full regrowth is beyond the scope of my lifetime. Only in hindsight can we see the extent of our folly, and only with mindful management can we bring the forest back.
We place a certain system of values upon our bodies and our treatment of them. The ethics are simple. When I’m hungry, I try to eat healthily and consciously, I attempt to avoid a great deal of pain, and I try to be active mentally and physically to maintain vigor. For humans, health is intrinsically a major priority, always a subconscious concern. Perhaps if we could apply similar practices of gentle use and self-restraint upon the land like our fundamental concepts of health, then maybe we wouldn’t destroy landscapes at such a startling rate. However, there is already hope in the hands of a precious few.
Those who are working to revitalize the health of the land are inspiring to me. Mike Prather of the Owens Valley Committee is a meticulous cardiologist, insisting upon the return of life blood to a nostalgic lake bed. He is nursing the Owens River back to life, restoring the corporal components of salt grasses, cottonwoods, and migratory birds. Suzanne Foudy is a physical therapist, rehabilitating watersheds through the reintroduction of beaver. She understands the need for commitment and hard work in the face of adversity and little faith for full recovery. Doug McDaniels is a loving parent, tending his forest with careful hands and a nurturing spirit. His blood, sweat, and tears moisten the ground and allow it to grow, just like those of our own fathers and mothers. Restoration, like bed rest and chicken noodle soup, can work wonders on the land.
There is a decidedly western division between nature and culture, making conservation work difficult in an unwilling society. We have mentally removed ourselves from what we are so dependent on. The paradigm of this dichotomous relationship must shift, so that our connection to the land is not distant but absolutely visceral. Under this mindset, we can respect the land as if it was an extension of our own bodies. If we are looking towards a sustainable and viable future, then the health of the land must be maintained through conscious management and protection, just like as we must with our own bodies to guarantee a long life. It could even come to a level of obsession like what our culture currently exhibits toward body image. We must protect the waters of the land’s circulatory system, its respiratory system, and its matrix of structure.
The irony is that the vitality of the West is now as dependent on us as we are on it. If we make wise decisions regarding our use of its resources, it will continue to provide. Yet if we continue to wage a war of attrition upon it, the land will fall ill, and its last breaths of life will soon be mimicked by our own. Ultimately, that pluvial reflection high in the Sierras has showed me the similarities between my body and the one surrounding me. I am left with a new awareness and appreciation for life and death. As I descend the ridge, I smile as the pine seedlings reach to the cerulean sky.
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Epiphany 2: Ranching and the Activist's Toolbox
While standing in a young grove of quaking aspen on the Cottonwood Ranch in northeastern Nevada, I listened to a BLM manager relate the importance of maintaining a thin aspen and sagebrush canopy for the purpose of greater grass growth. The clear bias in this statement left me incredulous. I thought of John Marvel of Western Watersheds Project, who for several days previously, had caused similar reactions in me through his use of statistics. In the end, I am reminded of a quote by Mark Twain: “There are lies, damn lies, and statistics.” As a potential scientist-in-training, I am constantly frustrated by the fact that everything in science ultimately depends on those pesky little numbers. The more time I spend in the field, the more I realize that although science plays an essential role in the environmental movement, its message does not always provide the comprehensive solution. The nexus of science and policy seemed convoluted to me in ranching. Therefore, it is important to recognize the impact each tool in the activist’s toolbox has in the contention between environmentalism and ranching in the American West.
Since science is seen in society as the pinnacle of objectivity, those involved are granted power, which is often used and abused by the media, politicians, scientists themselves, and others. That day at Cottonwood Ranch proved to me that science is inherently political. After hearing that 2% of beef is grown on public lands from John to learning from the Boies family that the number is more like 40%, who am I supposed to believe? Despite its setbacks, we have to accept science; not only is it essential in informing policy makers, there is no other way to quantify statements. This by no means destabilizes the utility or necessity of science in informing policy; it simply means that science is just one tool among others to use to make a case for something. The beauty of science lies in its repeatability. This makes it subject to peer review, to discussion, and to change as technology improves. The words of Mary O’Brien give me hope in the face of being desensitized by the politics of science: simply look at the data and analyze the methods. No matter how someone may interpret the data, undeniable patterns are usually present. Personally, I have difficulty embracing rangeland science following the examples of creek erosion and sagebrush consumption by cattle as discussed by the collaborative group. I wondered under what conditions I could really trust science, where people are held to their word and forced to be as objective as possible. It came to me that this can occur within the courtroom.
It was hard to leave John Marvel without a bad taste of litigation in my mouth. It is indisputable that in the courtroom, the power of both people and the science they employ are equalized. A small nonprofit organization like Western Watersheds can bring an enormous, nebulous bureaucratic agency like the BLM to the table to talk on a level plane. Good litigation mandates good science. In fact, conflict is inherently healthy to laws and the judicial system surrounding them. Ultimately, litigation should be used as a tool, not a weapon. There is a time and a place for litigation in the environmental movement, just like collaboration, political lobbying, or making personal lifestyle choices. As much as I want to believe in collaboration’s feel-good ability to solve everything, I think issues such as ranching are so inescapably polarized and the power dynamics so twisted that the use of another tool from the box is warranted. In terms of ranching, litigation should bring to justice those ranchers who are acting irresponsibly and managing their land with little or no regard for the law. Yet, just like science, the power of litigation can be abused, inhibiting ranchers like the Boies family from working with a higher sense of environmental responsibility.
Working for environmental change requires a utilization of a variety of methods to make a difference. Complex and politically entrenched issues such as ranching cannot be dealt with on a unilateral level alone. The John Marvels and the conscientious ranchers of the world are both important to instilling environmental values in a system typically opposed to them. It is the duty of environmentalists to recognize which tool is best applied to each situation, and understand the abilities and limitations of each one. Regardless of one’s opinion on public lands ranching, it is crucial to understand the value of all the different tools, and that sometimes several working in concert can be the most effective path to change.
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Owens Lake: Reaction
Ghosts of a landscape, skeletal, compelling, blood running dry. Reminiscent of vibrancy, now tenacity in thick stems of the tired plants. As cars rocket by, I wonder what the people know of this place, if the sand in the tires grates their brains in the knowledge of their impact. In the shadow of the Sierras, the dry heat reckons with the moisture of the past. A landscape molded by our clumsy potter’s hands, on a broken golden wheel. We are burning in the kiln of good intentions. The land is our art, but like any artist, we are sometimes unsure of where to stop. Can we intrinsically appreciate what we have now created? I am frightened by the power of our folly. Yet, I am inspired by the wisdom of the lessons the land will show us if we know through what lens to look, and by the humbling honesty of hindsight. Looking out across the Owens Valley, I wonder, where is our sense of moderation? I am reminded of a tattered quilt, the patchwork shadows of clouds pieced together by salty beds of phantasmal waters. I am moved by the nostalgia of a landscape I never knew…
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Vehi
Vehihama Kasupi learned the most efficient way to slaughter a rhinoceros before he was 15. Growing up with poachers in the deserts of Namibia, his tracking skills were honed until he could tell the gender and age of a rhino from merely its footprint in the sand. When Vehi was young, members of his village poached black rhinoceros out of economic desperation, selling the keratin horn on the black market to China as an aphrodisiac, despite protections placed upon the critically endangered animal. While I was studying abroad in Namibia last spring, Vehi told me and the other students in my group the stories of his childhood. The images of his first goat kill, his first days at school in a town, and of herding cows were woven together from the sounds of his slow, deliberate voice, in broken yet impressive English. As an employee of Round River Conservation Studies, Vehi now works with students like me, enlightening us about the conservation of rhinos and the history of poaching, a deeply personal issue for him. Vehi’s life coincides with that of the young nation and the development of its environmental consciousness, and can teach us lessons about how to make conservation a possibility across the globe.
Namibia gained independence from South Africa in 1990. Since it is such a fledgling country, conservation policy is relatively easy to enact. However, while we sat under the dry russet rocks and the haunting songs of the bok makiri bird, Vehi would tell us how people in his homeland had no regard for environmental values until recently, when it became economically viable to do so. The black rhinoceros population in Namibia dropped from approximately 65,000 in 1970 to 2,400 in 1995, and it wasn’t until international organizations intervened that the rampant poaching was put to a stop. Apart from of the intrinsic value of the rhinos as a species, the skyrocketing of ecotourism brought environmental values abruptly to a country previously occupied with the aftershocks of the Apartheid. The oldest desert on Earth, the Namib, is home to a high percentage of tenacious and unique endemic species. The landscape still dominates its few inhabitants rather than the other way around. Struggles with extreme drought and little food were characteristic of Vehi’s life, reflecting the impossibility of biodiversity conservation as a priority when one’s fundamental economic needs aren’t being met.
Save the Rhino Trust, a local nonprofit organization, understood that the motivations behind rhino poaching were often economic, and if they could make conservation a viable alternative to the destructive actions of the poachers, then perhaps the rhinos had a chance of survival. Brilliantly, SRT began to hire old poachers, including Vehi, to help them with rhino research. Thus, they could continue to use their impeccable tracking skills to help find a rhino, but rather than shoot it, they could aid with the research, and get paid to do so. Vehi worked diligently with SRT, proving to be a top tracker. Along with his field skills, Vehi also learned how to speak English, Afrikaans, and German in order to communicate with tourists and students more effectively.
Round River Conservation Studies has now hired Vehi to work as a student instructor and as a translator in some of their research projects involving local people in land management. As I conducted interviews about land use with Vehi in tiny villages on the mopane velds of central Namibia, I saw how his devotion to the work he does is not just financially driven, but is rooted in a sense of pride in the land and the animals he is working to protect. Whether our motivations are economic, sourced from a sense of place, or based on an intrinsic concern for species, conservation has to extend across the globe in order to work. As temperatures rise with the changing climate, the cathartic rains so crucial to life in the desert will become less frequent and the desert will expand. Biodiversity as a whole, like the black rhino, is endangered. Unless we consciously choose to conserve it, like Vehi did, and until we incorporate a little ingenuity like SRT, we may soon lose what we so depend on economically, politically, socially, and aesthetically.
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Tree Stories
I like to think that trees have eyes to take in the view around them, and tongues to wrap around their songs of place. Upon close inspection, you can notice their stories in their growth. The contorted pinyon pines for water, the aspen tells anecdotes in its trembling voice, and the willow weaves words in its undulations over riverbeds. Nouns and verbs photosynthesize, as simple sugar sentences form into complex histories. I have spent my life constantly among trees or in places where their absence is sharply felt. In the quest to define my own oh-so-ambiguous sense of place, I have realized that the stories of lodgepole pines and junipers - which relate starkly different yet precious landscapes - are integral to the telling of my own tale.
As a child, I looked upon the vast pine forests in Colorado with awe. Nothing seemed more immense or more impenetrable, yet eventually more familiar to me. Lodgepole pines were one of the first trees I learned how to identify when I was young. My subsequent captivation with the way life works was the start of my love affair with the natural world, and with biology.
Lodgepoles grow in subalpine elevations, reaching up to 10,000 ft, above which only spruce and fir krumholtz dance slowly across the tundra. The straight trunks of lodgepole are opposite of the images its scientific name, Pinus contorta, conjures. They are often used as telephone poles, teepee posts, or in log cabin construction due to their supportive power. Lodgepoles are the mountainside homemaker. They establish quickly after fires, dependent on its flame to melt open its serrotinous cones. In maturity, they invite flora and fauna alike to shelter in the duff under their arms. One of the hardier pines, lodgepoles maintain their ruler posture throughout summer thunderstorms and winter blizzards.
Like the lodgepole, I relish in the clockwork rain and fresh powder that characterize my home. When I think of Colorado, I think of snowy peaks and a sapphire sky, with forests in the foreground. The mountains, and the lodgepoles rooted upon them, are my foundation, providing me with cerebral comfort. The straight stems of the trees are my spine, the scaffolding in my brain. However, after months of travel, I realize the mountains are no longer the only place where I belong. My mentality is now riven between extremes, and my sense of place has been broadened. I have a new-found and powerful affinity for the desert.
The lodgepole’s counterpart in the deserts of the American West is the Utah juniper. This tree is wildly different from the lodgepole, paralleling the contrasts of their respective landscapes. Its gnarled boughs remain close to the ground, where its webbed fingers can brush the cryptobiotic soils that grow underneath. The juniper has peeling gray bark, reminders of my alligator skin in the dryness of the desert. Its berries seem to fluoresce in the moonlight, like tiny jellyfish in the dark oceans of mesas and sand. The juniper trunk squirms for want of water; the deep greens of its modified leaves are sun scorched. I have discovered that the stillness of the desert lends itself perfectly to introspection, and the lonely juniper, sparsely scattered through canyons and dry washes, revels in its solitude. Junipers live a long and secret life.
The desert challenges me. It abruptly removes me from my comfort zone of quaking aspen dawns and snow-blanketed midnights, and I find myself in an environment timeless and harsh. In the desert, I am forced to view the world through russet lenses, rather than the softer browns, greens and grays of alpine areas. I must admit, I am addicted to it. Junipers are the funky artist trees, delivering discomfort and delight together in one fell swoop like the environment which they inhabit. The twists of juniper trunks mirror the remolding of my mentality. The slow growth and longevity of these trees reflects my maturing concept of contentment.
So, where is my sense of place? How am I to feel rooted somewhere when I cannot decide between soils and sand as my substrate? I now crave flashing rain on slickrock as much as snowfall on talus slopes and the chilly morning moisture that grasps cones and needles. The lodgepoles are my skeleton, my structure; but junipers are my heartstrings, my boundary-extenders, and my emotion. In defining this sense of place, is there really a specific place that I must feel most attached to? This is a quandary I have yet to resolve. Perhaps I can find a place where lodgepoles and desert juniper share constant proximal space. Or maybe I must act as the rains, partaking in necessary yet ephemeral visits. The juniper are summoning me like the lodgepoles continue to do, calling me to my new home with murmurs and crooning gliding on parched winds. In the end, the landscapes we – the trees and I - both call home can be weaved into my story together, complimentary colors that complete the whole. Maybe the trees themselves will etch the stories of my presence in our shared landscapes into cones and cambium, ultimately defining a sense of place by our simple mutual existence.
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