A pair of clashing editorials regarding the recently-introduced legislation to transfer the Valles Caldera to the National Park Service have been published in the last week.
The first, in favor of keeping the current management structure at the Preserve and entitled “A step back for Valles Caldera,” was written by Santa Fe resident and 2007 Caldera cattle grazer Courtney White. Mr. White is founder of the Quivira Coalition, whose goal is to “build bridges among ranchers, conservationists, scientists and public land managers around concepts of progressive cattle management, innovative stewardship and improved land health.”
The second, entitled “Valles Caldera Bill a Step Forward,” which favors the legislation, was penned by Roger G. Kennedy, who served as director of the National Park Service in the 1990s.
Mr. White’s piece, which you can read by clicking here, was published in the Santa Fe New Mexican, as well as on the New West website. The conclusion of his piece is quoted below:
I know that the implementation of the preserve’s mission has been a rocky road so far. I have first-hand knowledge because I was part of the team that grazed the preserve with livestock in 2007. The preserve is nowhere near financial self-sufficiency yet. But is the answer to these problems abandonment of the vision?
The bill introduced by Sens. Udall and Bingaman replaces the original act entirely and eliminates the trust. It also eliminates the vision. While it allows livestock grazing and hunting to continue on the preserve, the bill uses the words “may allow,” meaning they’ll take place at the discretion of the secretary of the interior. And because hunting and livestock grazing are generally inimical to the mission of the Park Service, “may allow” will likely become “won’t allow” eventually.
I believe the transference of the Valles Caldera to the National Park Service is a step backward. That’s because the national park idea, whose roots extend back to the 19th century, is not well-suited for the onrushing, global challenges of the 21st century. In contrast, the Valles Caldera National Preserve, under its current mandate, has the potential to keep testing an innovative model that addresses pressing problems. For this reason, I think the experiment should run for a while longer.
It is important to note that while Mr. White is correct that the legislation states that the Park Service “may allow” cattle grazing, it mandates that the NPS “shall permit” hunting, a much more forceful endorsement of the latter activity.
Former Park Service director Kennedy’s responding editorial, which was also published on the New West website, can be read by clicking here. Mr. Kennedy’s article concludes as such below:
Courtney White, who wrote in opposition to the bill last week on New West, may consider the Caldera Trust an “audacious and visionary experiment” – but it was a stopgap—the best we – including Stewart Udall—could get. Stewart’s enthusiasm for the park concept never wavered, maybe because he, unlike Mr. White, understood what is and isn’t “inimical” to the mission of the National Park Service”: ranching is done on National Park land, rarely and carefully, as it can be done in the Caldera. The national parks aren’t all big remote western places – its mission since the New Deal has also been to serve urban populations – and New Mexico is urbanizing fast.
Mr. White asserts that “the national park idea, whose roots extend back to the 19th century, is not well-suited the [sic] onrushing, global challenges of the 21st century.” Wrong. That idea is about protecting special places for learning – and since the 20th century about places as accessible to cities as possible. Northern New Mexico is becoming like Colorado, where in the Front Range megalopolis Rocky Mountain National Park is Central Park — as the Santa Monicas are to Los Angeles. Nostalgia for cattle ranches is not a substitute for recognition of the need for nature close at hand – or for places where we can learn about each other and about nature.
Mr. White asserts that “the reason public land existed in the first place [was] to protect it from the profit motive.” No –our federal public lands were assembled in 1789. The public realm preceded the private, not the other way around. As for the “national park idea” – it isn’t a 19th century invention. It too goes back to George Washington, who insisted that the District of Columbia include open space and preserved wildness – that is why there is old growth in Rock Creek National Park. As for “challenges” – ours are severe, and so were Abraham Lincoln’s. He had a civil war to fight, but he coupled the Homestead Act, for purposeful privatization, with the encouragement of purposeful public protection of Yosemite. Challenges? President Franklin Roosevelt created the modern, comprehensive National Park System in the darkest days of the Depression – a System that almost included the Valles Caldera.
The Udall-Bingaman Bill accords with Stewart Udall’s aspirations for the Caldera, and with Theodore Roosevelt’s hopes for protection of American antiquity through the Antiquities Act of 1906. These traditions – of the 18th, 19th, and 20th centuries – are worthy of respect, as is the “noble experiment” in self-government that even in difficult times, does its duty to the land, and to the needs of our people.
