A cowboy riding the range is the icon of American western folklore. Freedom, open skies and a cattle drive are the images and imaginings of manifest destiny.
While cattle still dominate the landscapes in some western areas, the cowboy is a dying breed. Younger generations think of the west as the land of Google, Facebook and Amazon, as images of the wild west fade behind the digital circus.
Many rural Americans still call the open range home and depend on open spaces to feed their families and their herds. East of Oregon’s cascades there are hundreds of thousands of acres where ranchers raise their cattle. For many ranchers this means contracting with the federal government, which owns and administers most uninhabited land.
Over 50 percent of land in Oregon is owned by the federal government, a fact not lost on the occupiers who took over the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge last January.
On Jan. 2, 2016, disgruntled ranchers and self-proclaimed patriots brought the simmering debate over federally owned lands to a head. Led by Ammon Bundy, armed dissidents claimed the Malheur Wildlife Refuge near Burns, Oregon. The occupiers were protesting the sentencing of father and son Dwight and Steven Hammond, who admitted to committing arson on federal lands.
The occupation was the latest iteration of a larger movement to take back federal lands and put them in the hands of state and local agencies. Ammon Bundy, who participated in the 2014 standoff with federal officials at the Bunkerville, Nevada, ranch of his racist father Cliven Bundy, rallied followers to take a stand against federal ownership of public lands. The beginning of the end of the occupation was on Jan. 26 when the FBI arrested eight of the occupiers, including Ammon and Ryan Bundy, and shot LaVoy Finicum, killing him after a confrontation on a snowy Eastern Oregon roadside.
Closing arguments concluded on Oct. 19 in the case of Ammon Bundy and six co-defendants, charged with conspiracy to prevent federal employees from doing their jobs. The jury is currently in deliberation.
Regardless of the decisions made by the jury, it is clear that much is at stake for the future of the movement to take back public lands. If the occupiers are vindicated by the jury, they will be emboldened to further harass and intimidate federal workers. They will also gain momentum for their movement to put federal lands back in the hands of state and local agencies.
If they fail, it may be the salvation of the American cowboy.
While the idea of local ownership sounds better than some bureaucrat managing land from Washington, D.C., the reality of public land transfer is bleak. One of the most significant pushes for taking back public lands comes from congressmen Rob Bishop of Utah. Bishop has authored a series of bills in Congress that would transfer federal land in Utah to state and local ownership.
It doesn’t take long to figure out what transferring these public lands would accomplish. According to the Utah Public Lands Initiative, which features Bishop’s name on its banner, the state, “will benefit from increased energy and mineral production.” While the site makes other cases for public land transfers, I believe this is the salient point: It is easier for industries to operate on lands that lack federal protections.
This is not to say that federal lands do not have extractive industries including fracking. They do, however these lands are regulated by federal agencies subject to the influence of the public. While regulations may fall too short for some or be too stringent for others, the public has the right to know and speak out about what happens on our lands.
If federal lands were to be given back to local jurisdiction, we would relinquish our influence in the crafting of public land policy. We would be playing into the hands of the fossil fuels industry by starting a frenzied auctioning off of the commons.
Fossil fuel companies would drop bulldozer-sized loads of money on poor rural communities and make offers they couldn’t refuse. The self-interest of resource rich communities and promise of a quick fortune would trump concerns of environmental degradation and pollution. Tough decisions about creating sustainable communities would take a backseat to the riches to be gained.
The last cowboy would shake his 10-gallon hat in disgust at the oil derricks dotting the sagebrush and wonder, “What the hell were we thinking.”