eel eA aes YR/ AUGU ST-SEPTEMBER Sp OB oO Continued from FRAN R oxeCc( 2005 responsibly, write your Senators and newspapers, but don't expect anything but the almighty dollar to triumph. And know this: the younger generations, today's kids, don't expect or want quiet anyway, they grew up around lots of people, they grew up on videogames, they seem to be happy to get their "nature" on top of an ATV. They want cell phone access, wireless internet, and a fast-food outlet within a mile or two. And that's what they'll get. And we'll be dead. And THAT'S the truth. ‘Crista Worthy Pacific Palisades, CA MORE ON “GREENING” Dear Mr. Stiles Somewhat related to the sentiments of your especially fine story: back in the 80's and 90's when I got out of the city more often than I do now, I developed a preference for the deserts west of SLC out in the Basin and Range over the Red Rock country around Moab. The gentrification of wilderness had begun, | think, but its spirit did not penetrate the sage desert. No prestige, no adventure out there. Just being alone. Then back in town there wasn't much to talk about with anyone. Just what I seemed to need. I do have one story: At the spring equinox in 1987 near Lucin, I took a cup of tea to a spot about 50 yards away from the tent to wait for the sun to come up. The plan was to sit and watch the sun clear the eastern horizon--watch it all the way up. Just exactly as the orb broke the line of the horizon in the east a small pack of coyotes, maybe three, not far behind me started barking and yipping with considerable energy. (I was committed to watching the sun sol didn’t turn around.) The sound had a definite musical quality. They kept it up until the exact moment when the orb cleared the horizon line, then stopped, all at once, like a conductor's wand had come down. Half an hour earlier, two ravens had flown over from northwest to southeast. W. Blake said, "The wild deer wandering here and there/Saves the human soul from care.” J think that's about it. But I am writing to correct certain information in your story about Patrick Diehl. Patrick, the natural politician's antitype--his campaign slogan being "The Most Hated Man in Escalante"--did not get 7 percent of the vote in the Second Congressional District in 2002; he got one percent, 2,508 votes. Tori Woodward is his partner, not his wife. They left Utah for Corsica, not the coast. Love your work-Rand Hirschi Northern Utah SEND YOUR FEEDBACK COMMENTS TO: ecezephyr@frontiernet.net +moabzephyr@yahoo.com WAS ’GREENING’ AN EXERCISE IN FUTILTY? Dear Jim Everything ‘upsetting the inevitable-like tear the house you say in your long article is true; like Edward Abbey, you aren't afraid of conventional wisdom. Unfortunately, you are still just railing against the the owner of a house shouting epithets at a tornado which will ultimately to shreds and cast its owner aside like so much Kleenex. The fact is, that because this country has failed to control its borders, and because the human species has failed to control its numbers, in the next hundred years Utah and the entire Southwest will simply be overrun by massive numbers of people. That is, if we don't . suffer a real nuclear war, terrorist strikes or plagues (at least one of which is likely). A combination of oil and gas drilling, overgrazing, condo-building, mountain biking, ATVing, Jeeping, rock-climbing, hikers burying (or not) their excrement, coal-fired power plants, wind farms, highways, industrial manufacturing, outlet malls, etc. etc. will leave the area a total loss to those who want "wilderness", if you define that as a quiet place, untrammeled by man, witha substantial number of native plants and animals. Our National Parks, from Yellowstone to Arches, will still be there, but'visiting them is already about as "natural" as visiting the LA Zoo. I live in Los Angeles. It used to be an OK place, with nice beaches, good weather and efficient freeways. Now only a fool would go in the water and “rush hour" is 24/7. (Still good weather though). These hordes are coming to your corner of the world, and soon. First among them will be me, of course, which is why I even read your paper-I wanted to get a "handle" on the local scene. Aside from an unforgettable visit to Arches when I was 4 years old, I first came to Utah as a time-share owner of a 60-foot houseboat on Lake Powell. I didn't drive there in an SUV, I flew there in my plane. And since the age of 10, I have considered myself an "environmentalist". However, after my second visit to Lake Powell, I came across Crampton's book detailing what was lost-Glen Canyon-and proceeded to do a lot more reading, joined SUWA, Glen Canyon Institute, the Grand Canyon Trust, and all the rest. I must have written hundreds of letters and made hundreds of phone calls to legislators by now. I would gladly agree never to visit Glen Canyon again if they would drain that WE NEED JAMES WATT! Stiles! Very nice piece of work indeed. Some of this I trace back to James Watt. Loathe him or not —I did, as a young ranger — he was witty and outrageous. All the big enviro groups battened off the reactions he caused. We poured in the contributions, they addicted to the funds and staffing levels that “fighting Watt” showered into their coffers. Abbey was good on industrial tourism; this is industrial environmentalism. It works the same way — create a need, and satisfy it. Along the way, they’ve come to resemble him. Except for the wit. Where Watt did it for fun, in a bear-baiting way, just could not keep from jamming a stick into the hive, the big enviro groups are doing it humorlessly, frothing the airwaves with ever more strident stories and claims. It’s what keeps the money flowing. Those who don"t care for stridency, or like a ration of sense in 5 bushels of alarms and declamation, have gradually dropped off. My personal breaking point was when National Audubon arrogated credit to itself, ina selfcongratulatory “story”’ in its magazine, for saving the South Platte River from Two Forks Reservoir. In the rush to self-aggrandizement, they managed to miss just about every major player in that situation. It was all about the funding, and to keep that up, you have to have a demon (preferably in the White House) and a series of crises, each worse than the previous. Part of the push to wilderness is sensible, unspectacular management. If, for instance, logging roads were 3 meters wide rather than 10, and were really closed when they weren’t actively cutting; and if you could trust the Forest Service not to do clearcuts on 40-degree . slopes and to do the sort of selective cutting that a good fire mitigation specialist fosters, there’d be a lot less need for wilderness. But they aren’t and you can’'t, so it seems the only way to produce an aesthetic of management in the government agencies is to strip them of the power to destroy. A casualty of industrial environmentalism is what I would call the idea of the pastoral. If it ain’t 100,000 acres of designated wilderness, it ain’t shit. Moab is attractive not so much for the red rocks as for all the roses, and the agricultural fields and orchards sprinkled through it — the long-term residents of the city get sneered at a lot for their benighted pro-extraction views, but they had an aesthetic that fitted people into enclaves of beauty that mingled artificial, natural, and productive. No it wasn’t wild, nor yet wilderness, but it was beautiful and it was quiet and it maintained a notable diversity of wildlife and birdlife. I don’t think either the developer set or the wilderness set publicly values that aesthetic, based as it is on the idea that in all aspects of your life, you can fit in. Earl Perry Boulder, Colorado A PERSONAL EARLY SUWA HISTORY Jim, Thank you for writing the informative and insightful article. I'm writing to add to the early history of SUWA and to put in a good word for their direction of growth even though I was booted from the board of directors by the director. In the early 80's Gordon Anderson, then living in Moab, contacted me about the Federal Highway's plans to build and pave the Burr Trail and 80 miles of road on either side. Their plans involved doing to Waterpocket Fold what they did to Comb Ridge on highway 95 east of Blanding. I had just met him and Lucy Wallingford who held a meeting about the wilderness study process in Moab. The three of us formed the Save the Burr Trail Committee. A couple of years later Clive Kincaid and Robert Weed drove into the area all wild-eyed about how beautiful it was. Clive had been a BLM wilderness manager in Arizona. I went over the Wilderness Study maps with Clive and showed him how the BLM had illegally eliminated vast areas from consideration because of uranium claims and hydrocarbon leases in the Escalante area. I had been working with The Utah Wilderness Association on the Forest Service Wilderness bill and was under the impression that Dick Carter had traded most qualifying wilderness on Boulder Mountain for the Uinta wilderness in the FS wilderness bill. Clive said, 'To hell with Dick Carter. We'll form the Southern A Framed Picture of ME??? You couldn't afford it. my face is PRICELESS. reservoir and restore that entire ecosystem. But they won't. Right now, the oil/gas developers and the housing developers are "winning" because the suitcases they bring to Washington D.C. have more money in them than the suitcases SUWA or even the Sierra Club can bring. Money always wins. But in the end, the simple number of people in this country, and the need for them to live somewhere and recreate somewhere will overpower the desert. Any politician in this country who actually closed the borders and issued strict breeding limits on U.S. citizens would commit political suicide, and Americans don't want their off-road vehicles or hiking privileges taken away from them, either. In the last 10 years, flying over the West, the scars upon the land from all manner of human activity have increased exponentially. Southeast Utah is a joke. Dirt roads everywhere. Only west of the Kaibab Forest have I seen large stretches where it really looks like no one ever goes. So am Ia hypocrite? No, I'm honest about my intentions. To the extent that my moving to the Southwest increases the population, I'll be part of the problem. I could do you all a favor and just kill myself, but I'll pass on that idea. I promise not to build a giant house. Actually, I wanted to move to Escalante, but from what I had been able to glean from here, Patrick Diehl's experience, as described in your article, was about what I expected would happen. And in my case, as a female bodybuilder, I'd probably get an even less friendly reception! But solutions, we want solutions! Well, I have none except this: those of us who value "wilderness" should spend as much time enjoying what is left of it as we can. Try to live Utah Wilderness Association." I disagreed with taking a contentious approach with fellow environmentalists and insisted it be called the Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance. We used the Save The Burr Trail Committee mailing list and started the organization. The board of directors was made up of people from other towns in Southern Utah and was supposed to bea grass roots local group. Clive, Robert and I were promptly hung in effigy in Escalante FRAMED IMAGE CUSTOM FRAMING FHNE ¢ GRAPHIC HC DEDESIGN 59 E CENTER ST, STE B MOAB, UT * 435-259-4446 (Down the alley East of Parriott's Hair Salon)