The comments below, in brackets, are by David Orr.
Tom
------------------------------------------------------------------------------

--------------------
[Once again, High Country News has shown itself to be completely
unreliable to represent our movement accurately.  I emphasized to the
author in an hour-long interview how our proposal is designed to help,
not hurt, the small, non-corporate ranchers whose livelihoods would be
impacted by ending grazing on public lands.  I also emphasized the
landscape-level damage and ripple effect throughout the economy caused by
public lands grazing, and all that was ignored.  The Quivira Coalition's
viewpoint is well represented, and as usual the HCN "spin" is predictably
pro-cattle...]



Vol. 33 Issue. 4
High Country News
119 Grand Avenue
PO Box 1090
Paonia, CO 81428
(970) 527-4898

WESTERN ROUNDUP, February 26, 2001

'Zero-Cut' initiative splits Sierra Club
by Kirsten Bovee


Are urban members ignoring rural range life?

CHAMISAL, N.M. - Debating the use of public lands in northern New Mexico
is like driving its dirt roads in springtime. Mud splatters, wheels spin,
and those who brave the mire run a good chance of getting stuck in the
muck. Up one such dirt road, in the pinon and juniper forests of the
Sangre de Cristo Range, Kay Matthews and Mark Schiller live in the
mountain village of Chamisal.

In the 1960s and '70s, Matthews and Schiller fought for civil rights and
protested the Vietnam War. Now they wield their pens on behalf of their
neighbors - residents of small, predominantly Hispanic foothill
communities. "It's all the same fight," says Schiller.

The two run La Jicarita, an eight-page monthly newspaper that chronicles
water concerns, community events and politics in towns such as Penasco,
Las Trampas and Embudo. Both consider themselves environmentalists, but
Schiller is quick to add, "There's a whole part of the puzzle missing
when urban environmentalists ignore rural communities."

That's exactly what they feel happened in 1996, when Sierra Club members
approved a policy that advocated an end to commercial logging on public
lands. In northern New Mexico's traditional communities, pinon pine is a
winter staple for heat and cooking fuel.

"Decisions are made by people sitting in offices in San Francisco who
cannot grant autonomy to their local members," said Matthews. In October
1999, Matthews and six others stood on the steps of the state capitol in
Santa Fe and withdrew their membership from the Sierra Club.

Now Matthews and others are taking aim at a proposed Sierra Club policy
that would call for an end to all commercial grazing on public lands.
Just up the road from Matthews and Schiller, the Hispanic residents of
Penasco have grazed small herds of cattle on the slopes of the Sangre de
Cristo Mountains for generations.

"These policies are affecting some of the most disenfranchised people in
the community," says Matthews. "How dare they disenfranchise them again?"

Zero cud?
Weighing in at over 600,000 members, the Sierra Club is an environmental
heavyweight whose endorsements carry considerable clout. The Sierra Club
regularly juggles hard-line policy positions with dissension in its
ranks, as with the call to drain Lake Powell (HCN, 10/13/97: Sierra Club
moves to fortify its 'drain Lake Powell' campaign), the "zero cut" policy
(HCN, 5/27/96: Sierra Club zeroes in on logging), and a failed initiative
to limit immigration (HCN, 5/11/98: Give me your tired, your poor, your
huddled masses).

Wise-use groups are alert to the Sierra Club's positions. "We take these
sorts of things very seriously," says George Landrith, executive director
of Frontiers of Freedom.

To bring "zero cud" to vote, supporters collected the requisite 1,300
member signatures at REI stores, trailheads and Sierra Club meetings.
They focused on urban areas such as New York City, San Francisco and Los
Angeles. Caleb Kleppner, a Sierra Club member from San Francisco who
circulated the petition, considers the issue a "no-brainer" for members.
"People can see what the cows are doing to the land," he says.

Zero-grazing advocates say public-lands ranching damages riparian areas,
costs taxpayers needless expense in subsidies, and diverts precious water
to raise feed crops such as alfalfa.

"Cattle have overstayed their welcome," says David Orr, who was also
instrumental in the zero-cut campaign and is now field director for the
Glen Canyon Action Network, a group that advocates draining Lake Powell.
"Public lands should not be in place for private profit-making," he says,
"especially at the expense of the environment."

Orr says he recognizes the concerns of ranchers currently dependent on
public lands. "I'm sympathetic to where they're coming from," he says,
"but ranchers are part of a culture that's facing change, whether they're
ready for it or not."

Some members of the Santa Fe Group of the Sierra Club, however, think
urban enviros are ignoring rural reality. "It's not all black and white,"
says Courtney White, long-time Sierra Club member and co-founder of the
Quivira Coalition, an organization that espouses sustainable ranching
techniques.

Barbara Johnson, Sierra Club member and co-founder of the Quivira
Coalition, agrees. "This kind of thing just polarizes people." She
believes a no-grazing stance will make it "more difficult for the Sierra
Club to work with people who are on the ground."

Out on the range
While public-lands ranchers today are often typecast as wealthy hobby
cowboys, many in New Mexico fit a different profile. "These aren't Rolex
ranchers," says Steve Miranda of the Camino Real Ranger District in the
Carson National Forest.

Andie Sanchez grazes 14 head of cattle in the mountain meadows near
Penasco. He works full time doing maintenance for the school system; his
small herd doesn't provide much of an income, he says, but it's enough to
keep his family going. To Sanchez, public-lands ranching makes possible
"our culture, our livelihood, our future."

Sanchez's small herd is typical among the 16 members of the Santa Barbara
Grazing Association, of which Sanchez is president. In the Santa Fe
National Forest, 76 percent of the permittees graze less than 50 head.
Courtney White says, "To lump all these guys together is patently unfair."

Adding to the complexity is the fact that many of the public lands in
northern New Mexico were once land grants, deeded to Hispanic settlers by
Spain and Mexico. "When these were land grants, we had a right to be
there," says Virgil Trujillo, who grazes his cattle on public lands near
Abiquiu, N.M. "We didn't choose for land grants to become public lands."

In northern New Mexico, says Trujillo, grazing permits are "heirlooms"
passed from generation to generation. "There are many good examples of
good stewardship," he says. "Why can't we sit down, talk about it, and
get everyone's energy focused on the environmental situation?"

Such arguments have not been lost on the Sierra Club. Last year, the
Environmental Justice Committee of the Sierra Club asked the Santa Fe
Group to take a closer look at ranching in northern New Mexico. They
called upon anthropologist Ernie Atencio, who wrote Of Land and Culture:
Environmental Justice and Public Lands Ranching in Northern New Mexico in
response. The 50-page report concludes that "a zero-grazing policy would
have an impact on a predominantly poor, Hispano population as negative as
any discriminatory environmental policy that threatens the health and
welfare of disenfranchised populations of people of color in any other
context."

Cliff Larson, Santa Fe Group Conservation chair, hopes the report will
encourage "a more thoughtful approach" and forestall "knee-jerk votes"
from urban voters unfamiliar with grazing issues.

Sierra Club members will vote on the zero-grazing initiative in April.


Kirsten Bovee is an HCN intern.

You can contact ...

*   Courtney White, The Quivira Coalition, for copies of Of Land and
Culture, 505/820-2544;
*   Caleb Kleppner, Sierra Club member, 510/841-6761, www.rangebiome.org;
*   Evie Ebzery, Frontiers of Freedom, 307/234-5333.

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