By VERNON ROBISON
A year ago, public lands activists in southern California were closing in on an important goal. They were fighting for federal protection of a beloved outdoor area just a stone’s throw from one of the most populous regions in the southwest. It had been a long battle and they were just about to claim their prize.
The San Gabriel Mountain region and Angeles Forest area have been reknowned as a nature lover’s paradise rising above an urban megalopolis. The beautiful and rugged mountain area, wedged between the Los Angeles basin to the south and the high desert to the north has long been a nearby outdoor playground for the 15 million people of the surrounding region.
But with all that recreational use, this vast resource, managed by the U.S. Forest Service, was showing significant signs of wear. In the more frequently visited areas there were alarming instances of vandalism and neglect. Trash, broken beer bottles and old marijuana pipes were strewn everywhere. Porta-potties and interpretive signs, meant to enhance the visitation experience, were covered in graffitti and other vandalism. Wildlife was falling victim to vehicle traffic on the heavily travelled roadways through the area. It was a mess!
Eventually, there was an outcry from the general public. The area needed additional federal protection! As federal land, there were of course, certain protections already in place. Nevertheless, the damage had continued. So people demanded more. Some went to their Congressional representative, Judy Chu, who proposed legislation to create a new National Conservation Area (NCA).
But the legislation ran into opposition from rural residents who lived in little towns up in the mountains. These small-town hayseeds viewed the proposal as just another way for the federal government to drive them off of lands that they had long loved and cherished. They noted that most of the damage was being done by urban residents in spots that were most easily accessed from the more populated areas. Less problems existed in the more remote areas around the rural towns where they lived. They shook their heads at the vast tract of land being proposed for designation, nearly 350,000 acres, and wondered why such a huge area was needed to protect just a relatively concentrated problem. Why not simply focus resources on enforcing rules and protecting specific areas with the problems? Why punish the rural folks for the sins of the urban dwellers?
So the rural residents went to work to block the legislation. And they were successful in the Republican-led Congress. Chu’s bill did not make it to a vote and a San Gabriel Mountain NCA was never designated.
But that didn’t stop the urban-dwelling activists. Intent on reclaiming their damaged areas and preventing spread of problems, they continued to push for a stricter federal designation. Finally, on October 10, 2014, President Barack Obama signed a proclamation declaring the creation of a new San Gabriel Mountain National Monument.
A great shout of celebration went up among the environmental activists in the region. They had gotten all that they wanted! Surely, now the horrible impacts of overuse, vandalism and neglect would be reversed. After all, those things just don’t happen in a full-fledged National Monument, do they?
Fast forward to today, not quite a year later, and the celebration is over. Last week, a news story ran in the Los Angeles Times about the San Gabriel Mountains National Monument. Was it a happy turnaround story? Was it about how this damaged ecosystem was taking major strides in being reclaimed? Had unlimited federal resources been devoted to cleaning up the area and returning it to a pristine state? Had additional dollars gone to boost enforcement in the area to prevent further damage? Had even more resources gone into educating the public on the need to cherish their public lands? Had everyone achieved a change of heart and were they now living a peaceful and clean co-existence with nature? Unfortunately none of this was the direction that last week’s news story took.
Instead, the story was about how the new federal designation has changed absolutely nothing on the ground in the San Gabriel Mountains. A photo ran with the article depicting appalling trash strewn along a river bed in the area. Graffitti on public property is still rampant. Ravens are still pecking at roadkill along the sides of busy roads. Nothing has changed! The federal designation was just something on paper. In and of itself, it hasn’t actually protected anything.
One problem is that the designation hasn’t really brought any more federal funding to the area. The Forest Service is being funded the same as it ever was. The new monument does not have a specific earmarked budget of its own. And a recent Forest Service analysis concluded that the area does not really need to have a separate management plan or an environmental impact study to manage it. It’s being managed pretty much the same as it ever was before the designation.
Of course, all of this is making the environmentalists impatient and unhappy. And if past experience is any indication, some one will eventually file a lawsuit against the Forest Service for not adequately protecting the resource. With still limited funding to remedy the situation, the only option that federal land managers will then have is to shut down access to the area; even though it may have been promised it would never happen. Thus the fears of the rural mountain residents, many of whom have enjoyed those precious lands for generations, will be fully realized.
Interestingly, all of this has reverberating echoes in our own southern Nevada region. At about 350,000 acres, the Gold Butte complex is roughly equivalent to the San Gabriel Mountains area. And, of course, there are many more parallels than that between the two.
Like San Gabriel, Gold Butte suffers from damage in limited, concentrated areas that receive the most visitation; damage, most likely done by thoughtless urban visitors. This causes urban-based activists to cry out for an enhanced federal designation. They say that protection of the area is a no-brainer, an absolute necessity. They promise that a new designation will surely bring new resources: additional funding to better protect the land.
But, like their brothers in southern California, these enviro-activists mistakenly believe that protection of the land is a political act. They think that by merely pulling the right strings in Washington, they will force positive conservation results on the ground. If they get enough signatures, raise enough money for political contributions, hold enough rallies, write enough glossy reports and manipulate enough of public opinion, they believe that their designation will come; and then all will be fine. They can then go home feeling at peace with the world. Problem solved.
But it doesn’t work that way. Just like San Gabriel, a new designation alone would fix very little at Gold Butte. It won’t necessarily bring added resources or funding. It won’t bring added protections. It won’t bring added law enforcement. And it probably won’t even bring the tourism dollars to the region that are being held out to rural residents as some kind of incentive.
What it will bring, when the damage continues despite the new designation, are restrictions and closures. That is what the rural residents closest to the region fear, because they have seen it happen before. Without adequate funding to deal with the problems, the land managers will have no choice but to close down roads to the more sensitive areas.
Access will be restricted; even though sincere promises were made, with crossed hearts, to the contrary. Finally, the rural residents who had the most invested in the land, will suffer the greatest loss.
There are already federal protections in place at Gold Butte; rules that are going un-enforced due to lack of funding. If all of this additional federal funding that the enviros talk about is indeed available, perhaps it ought to be used now to merely enforce the rules and restrictions already in place. We don’t need a new designation to do that. It wouldn’t be required to simply fund the enforcement that will get a handle on the relatively few instances of damage going on in the concentrated areas of Gold Butte.
Then allow the local groups and willing local volunteers to work with federal land managers, as they have successfully done in the past, to solve the existing problems on the ground; one step at a time. That is real conservation!
You see, real conservation doesn’t take place in Washington DC, it takes place locally. Real protection of precious lands doesn’t happen by playing politics, it comes through diligent efforts of plain people. Simply put, these are situations where the federal government simply can’t, and shouldn’t, do it all for us. With the managing agencies’ help, the people can do it themselves. And we really shouldn’t let anyone try to convince us differently.
Despite all of the rosy promises and self righteous platitudes from enviro-activists, a new federal designation proclaimed from on high by the President in far-off Washington, simply will not provide a magic solution to conservation problems. It didn’t in the San Gabriel Mountains of California. It won’t in the Basin and Range of Nevada. It won’t at Gold Butte. And it won’t anywhere else.
