Misc Items

A caution: Don’t assume that if you grew up on a farm or in a logging town or even on a reservation, that you know all there is to know about land management. Nevertheless, chances are that you have a firmer basic grasp on the matter than someone who has taken some courses on “ecology” or “restoration” or “environmental studies,” or even someone who teaches such subjects--depending of course on the particular individual and his/her background. 

More and more is written and codified Re “enviro” and “ecology.” EIRs and other such documents are churned out by the 1000s every year, as if that were some substitute for the real thing. All the nameless little beauty spots, as quickly as they are discovered, as fed into the mill, to die the quick dead under the golf course or housing tract, or the slower death of neglect, choked out by weeds. The kind of attention these places really need is almost never given, except occasionally more or less by accident and crudely, by grazing or an accidental fire or… 

Very often I have encountered beleaguered small landholders who have been made to jump through involved and expensive hoops in the interest of “environmental protection.” More often than not, most of these regulations are based on very partial or faulty information, with the result that the measures designed to protect “sensitive” resources are ineffectual or even counterproductive. Plus the owner is frustrated and pissed. “A little knowledge is a dangerous thing…” 

And beware the word “mitigation” as used in environmental documents--the term is used to foist all manner of improbable, dubious, ill-conceived prescriptions to “fix” problems. Granted, considerable thought does go into some mitigation plans, but the final analysis is a matter of extracting promises and making treaties, the same kind of treaties that were made countless times with Indian tribes (or rather, with their hand-picked “spokesman”) every time some settlers or miners wanted more land. In the long run, the only part of the treaties that actually stuck were that the settlers always got the land. 

Hard as it is to believe, another naive generation, evidently not instructed or jaded by these past lessons, is earnestly repeating the same old treaty-making process with a straight face, 

unable to make a connection between the current term “in perpetuity” and the old treaty-cliche “as long as grass grows and water flows.” 

However sincerely offered, words are words, solid as the wind.