“Selfishness in the Sandbox” is part 5 in an 8-part series focused on explaining a document called “A Manifesto for Local Stewardship.” The manifesto, which made its rounds in summer of 2022, was published in The Byway’s most recent September paper.
The President Stole Your Land, read Patagonia’s webpage on December 3, 2017, immediately after President Donald Trump downsized both Grand Staircase-Escalante and Bears Ears National Monument. “This is the largest elimination of protected land in American history,” Patagonia added.
The BLM’s Bears Ears area had been designated a national monument by President Barack Obama just 11 months prior. If Trump’s monument reductions constituted land theft, what then was the original monument proclamation by Obama? A gift, or just another theft?
Thus is the contention the recreationist crowd has with the BLM’s multiple-use mandate.
The federal government owns 63% of the land inside Utah, and most of that land is subject to a multiple-use mandate under the Federal Land Policy and Management Act of 1976 (FLPMA). But before the federal government organized the management of these lands, Utah pioneers had already put much of that land to use — primarily through grazing. By the time the Taylor Grazing Act of 1934 was passed, grazing was the senior right on most of Utah’s public land.
For those living back east, or living in urban areas, the thought of cows having the senior right to use much of Utah’s most beautiful land can be bothersome, but that’s the way it is.
When I was a boy growing up in Utah County, my parents would often take us camping at Payson Lakes. I remember going for hikes with my dad through the rolling hills of that high country. I loved being in the mountains — but I was bothered by the cow pies. How could such great land be used for cows?
Many Utahns living on the Wasatch Front have this perspective, and that’s too bad. After growing up, I now appreciate that even though ranchers don’t have a feasible ownership of the land up there, they still have a long-standing grazing right. I’m grateful that even with their usage of the land, the land is still public and available for me to use as a recreationist.
Had Utah ranchers enjoyed the same privilege as ranchers in eastern states, they would have earned private ownership of all that land.
Utah ranchers through the decades have never seemed upset about having to share the land with others. They never considered the land theirs anyway outside their right to graze it. So with their sharing attitude, where does the contention come from now?
First came the ranchers. Then came the conservationists.
The multiple-use mandate under FLPMA requires that BLM land maintain a “sustained yield,” or usage, among multiple uses such as recreation, range, timber and minerals. These are protected uses under that law.
While Utah’s ranchers may have come too late to gain full ownership of Utah’s grazing land, recreationists and conservationists are also too late in taking usage rights away from the ranchers. Yet, that still seems to be their main goal. In a sense they are the last to arrive in the sandbox — but are nevertheless determined to be the only ones allowed in it.
Many recreationists see public land merely as a playground, and believe that such land should only be approved for one use: recreation.
Conservationists have argued, on moral grounds, that some of Utah’s most scenic areas aren’t fit for grazing and mining. Maybe that is the case — but from a legal perspective, they make their argument too late: the land is already in use and those uses are protected by law.
The conservationists and recreationists have so far worked as allies to remove or restrict other users like grazers. This has come to a head lately in the South Monroe Mountain Allotments Livestock Grazing Authorization. But generally, it seems that the recreationists are unaware some conservationists aren’t actually fighting for single use recreation: they are fighting for zero use.
This sentiment was apparent in comments made by Scott Berry, the director of conservation group Grand Staircase Escalante Partners in a 2022 monument advisory committee meeting. “I guess, just would wonder if you are going to be able to include in your future planning, ways to reduce visitation,” Berry said. “If we made it harder for people to visit the monument, that would serve the goal of protecting and conserving objects and values.”
Other recreationists have noted the disagreement with conservationists. Candice Gaukel Andrews mused that “what particularly irks some recreationists is the high horse that conservationists tend to ride,” referring to conservationists touting their own “quiet” recreation such as bird watching and hiking.
Andrews pointed out the rift was a swing toward selfishness over land use. She then cited an example from Yellowstone and Grand Teton National Parks: in 2014, packrafters helped trigger the two parks to do a feasibility study of recreational paddling. But conservationists opposed the idea, benign as paddling is. Why would they even care?
Unfortunately, it is natural that public lands should become victim to what Garrett Hardin called “The Tragedy of the Commons.” Everyone wants it for themselves.
Jonathan H. Adler, a professor at the Case Western Reserve University School of Law, pointed out that “each interest group has every incentive to seek special benefits through the political process,” even at a cost to others. We see that very thing happening now as special interest groups try to establish their own land use over the rights of others.
Today, the ranchers aren’t perfect humans and you might not like that they exist at all. But the other users of public lands, especially the recreationists and conservationists, should learn one great lesson from the old cowboy: that is, you have to share.
Public land is a sandbox where all are welcome to work or play. If you learned to play nice in the sandbox as a kid, now you can exercise that same cooperation in real life. In the sandbox we share — and as long as no one is being a bully, all can coexist in harmony.
– by AJ Martel
Feature image caption: A rancher herds sheep across Highway 6 North of Delta, Utah on October 28, 2007.
AJ Martel – Escalante
AJ Martel is the youth coordinator at The Byway, but he is involved in most everything. He and his family live in Escalante, and they love it here! AJ has found Utah’s small towns quite inviting and under-defended, which is why he’s so involved with the paper. What AJ loves to do most, though, is serve his community. That is clear through everything he writes and does for Escalante, Utah.