Families like the Merritts are hard working Americans
who are providing our food and being good stewards at the same time. Yet,
these families are being attacked as if they were public enemy number one.
Why?
The environmentalist attack on America's roots
The general perception painted by environmental groups
and the main-stream media is that western ranchers are destroying the
rangeland out of greed. They are often spoken of as a cancer that needs to
be eliminated from the western landscape. With only 12 inches of annual
precipitation, it is easy for ranchers to degrade the range. Some have done
exactly that. But, there are always some bad apples in every barrel. Those
ranchers are gone within a few years because their abuse soon comes back
to haunt them. Their exploitation of the land results in vastly reduced grass
production which puts them out of business. Even in those situations,
claims grandpa Ronnie Merritt, "the range responds beautifully with a
couple of normal rain years. Before you know it, the range is back to full
health."
Out of the 62 square miles of land in the Merritt
family's ranch, Ron now owns about 40
square miles while his dad owns the balance. On a good year
Ron is allowed by the Bureau of Land Management to run 500 cattle on his
40 square miles of rangeland. To put that into perspective, Manhattan's
population in New York City is about 1.5 million people in only 32 square
miles! Yet, according to environmentalists and some BLM bureaucrats Ron
and his neighbors are allowed to have far too many cattle!
Earlier in the summer Ron sold 100 head because he was
concerned 500 would put too much pressure on the drought stricken range.
"I might have to sell another hundred or so pretty soon if we don't
get some rain," Ron said. An all-day trip around his ranch by grandpa
Merritt gave proof to Ron's sense of stewardship. Even after four years of
drought, it was obvious the native gramma grass was healthy and occupied
most of the growing space on the Merritt's ranch.
In fact, the Merritt's rangeland was in excellent
condition according to the eye of this author, whose minor in college was
range management. The same was true of their neighbors' too. Grandpa
Merritt explained why, "If you want to stay in business and leave
something for your children, you have to put the condition of the range
first."
Livestock are not the only ones benefiting from these
ranchers. Water wells that are drilled, piped and maintained by the ranchers also
provide critically needed water for wildlife, especially in drought years
like now. Yet, these ranchers are repeatedly and viciously demonized by
environmentalists as ecosystem destroyers. Except in a few isolated and
atypical instances, the charges by environmentalists are an absolute
lie.
The international roots of the
problem
As in almost all other cases, Ron's problems start with
international treaties written or promoted by the
International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN). Created as
the primary scientific advisor to the UN in 1946, the IUCN now has both the leading environmental organizations
and the US
federal land management agencies as members. This includes the US Department of
Interior, which houses the BLM that oversees Ron's grazing permits. The
concept of "sustainable development" first originated in the
IUCN to protect the natural functioning of earth's ecosystems and led to
the creation of Agenda
21, the Convention on Biological
Diversity, the
Convention on Desertification and others that were introduced at the 1992
Rio de Janeiro Earth Summit.
Since IUCN membership includes both US federal
agencies and US environmental groups, both groups had a hand in writing
the global treaties and agreements that they then enforced or lobbied for
in the US. For instance, Chapter 15.5 of the UN Agenda
21states that
Governments at the appropriate levels, consistent with
national policies and practices, with the cooperation of the relevant
United Nations bodies...take effective economic, social and other
appropriate incentive measures to encourage the conservation of
biological diversity and the sustainable use of biological resources,
including the promotion of sustainable production systems, such as traditional
methods of agriculture, agroforestry, forestry, range and wildlife
management, which use, maintain or increase biodiversity. (Bold
and italics added for emphasis)
Traditional methods involve the ancient pantheistically-based religious beliefs that god is made up of all things of nature and
have equal importance. "Traditional societies," according to
Section 12.2.3 of the UN Global Biodiversity Assessment, "tend to view themselves as members of a community that not only includes other humans, but also
plants and animals as well as rocks, springs and pools. People are then members of a community, of
beings – living and non-living. Thus, rivers may be viewed as mothers. Animals may be treated as kin."
Therefore, traditional methods would consider plants, animals and rocks as
beings and therefore as important as humans in an ecosystem community. Section 11.2.3.1.2 further
defines the importance of traditional methods in the natural balance of
earth's ecosystems. With
traditional societies...nature is valued both in its own right and for its role in
spirituality.... Traditional societies have considered certain sites as
sacred, where most human activities are prohibited. Most societies have also considered certain
species sacred..., or how these species are incarnations of, or in some way associated with, gods and deities, or how they have magical
powers. (Bold and italics added for emphasis)
Suddenly the use of traditional methods into sustainable
development takes on a whole new meaning that most Americans would find
mind-bending, if not abhorrent. In any event, the operative concept is
natural. Anything artificial or introduced is not sustainable according to
these UN documents. One of the criterion for determining the sustainable
use of an ecosystem is whether the species being managed is alien. Article
8(h) of the UN Convention on Biological Diversity states that to prevent
loss of biodiversity, the host nation must "prevent the introduction of, control or eradicate those alien species which threaten ecosystems, habitats or
species."
Although the treaty was not ratified by the US Senate,
President Clinton made every attempt to implement its provisions anyway.
An August 6, 1993 Environmental Protection Agency Internal Working
Document on Ecosystem Management claimed that "Natural
resource and environmental agencies... should...develop a joint strategy
to help the United States fulfill its existing international
obligations (e.g. Convention on Biological Diversity, Agenda 21)."
The treaty had not even been sent to the US Senate for ratification when
this EPA document was written. Yet, it was being implemented by federal
bureaucrats. The EPA document goes on to say, "The
executive branch should direct federal agencies to...amend national
policies to achieve international objectives."
(Bolding and italics added for emphasis)
Without any law passed by Congress, President Clinton
did exactly that on February 3, 1999 in Executive Order 13112 which is designed to control and/or
eradicate alien species in the US. The EO defined alien species to mean "Any species or viable biological material capable of propagating that species, that is
not native to that ecosystem." Cattle and sheep were introduced and therefore alien since they are not exempt from the EO.
Interestingly, neither are cats, dogs, ornamental flowers, and even white Anglo
Saxon human beings. All are alien. Technically, they are not sustainable according to IUCN
theology, the Biodiversity treaty and Clinton's executive order.
If an invasive alien species is determined to cause
"environmental harm" that species must be
"controlled," by "eradicating, suppressing, reducing, or
managing" it, according to EO 13112. Because US federal agencies are
directly involved in establishing IUCN pantheistic natural resource
management theology, it is a small step to consider ranchers and farmers
as plunderers of ecosystems rather than stewards, even if the facts
totally contradict their theology. Therefore, Clinton's EO directs them to
directly intervene and eradicate, suppress, reduce, or manage the cattle,
pets, flowers and humans.
This
stunning leap into never, never land was made apparent in a March 30, 1994
BLM Internal Working Document on Ecosystem
Management. The objective and purpose of Ecosystem Management, according
to this BLM document, was that "All ecosystem management activities should consider human beings as a
biological resource..." (Bold and italics added
for emphasis)
With this type of sick and poisoned reasoning,
ranchers and farmers are suddenly the enemy and have to be managed to
protect mother nature at any cost. If possible, according to this
nihilistic theology the rancher or farmer should be put out of business because their
practices are not sustainable. Certainly not all BLM personnel agree with
this, but tragically a growing number do.
During President Clinton's reign, Secretary
of Interior Bruce Babbitt tried to implement range reform that put all
range use directly under the total authority of the BLM. The fact that
grazing rights on BLM land is a constitutionally guaranteed property right
thwarted most of his efforts, but not all. Babbitt was successful in
claiming all capital improvements on BLM land by ranchers as now belonging
to the BLM.
So now fences, water development and other assets the
rancher needs to manage his livestock belong to the BLM. Not only does the
taxpayer have to pay for any future improvements, but the rancher loses
control over when, where and how much of these improvements are made. It
is a small step for a rancher to be forced out of business if the
enlightened BLM plays god by dragging its feet or disallowing improvements that are critical
to the cost effective management of the livestock.
Worse, both the US
Forest Service and BLM are beginning to mandate that at least 40 percent
of the grass on the range be left for wildlife in spite of the fact that
the ranchers actually own the grass. In drought years like the Merritts
are now experiencing this would be as disastrous as what has been
experienced by the Klamath River farmers, who suddenly had all irrigation
water denied them so the endangered sucker fish could have it. And, like
the Klamath River disaster, wildlife will also suffer because once the
rancher is gone, so is the water they depend on for life.
Drought is just one of the many things that the Merritts and
tens of thousands of other ranchers and farmers have to
contend with as a fact of life to produce the food we in the rest of
America and the world enjoy every time we sit down to eat. Ranching and
agriculture are high risk ways of life. If acts of God cause them to go
out of business, it is a risk these hardy Americans are willing to take.
But to be falsely accused of destroying the land by pantheistic
environmentalists and federal agencies is not only outrageous, it
threatens to put all food production under the direct control of these
nature worshiping fanatics thereby threatening the food supply to all
Americans.
It is all our responsibility to decouple the unholy alliance
between federal bureaucrats from environmental fanatics, and force the
government to prove that there really is a problem before creating
regulations to conform to their pantheistic, nature-is-god, religious
beliefs. V mc
