Building a Base

What a long strange trip it’s been, traveling the politically rutted road of public lands policy surrounding Gold Butte. However, along the way I have seen some great sights and have learned a few good lessons.

It was little more than a year ago, that I was meeting with our congressional delegation on a regular basis. It was in those meetings that I was told point blank that the Gold Butte NCA and Wilderness proposal was a done deal. It was only in May of 2010 that the Clark County Commission passed their naïve and disingenuous resolution, reworked at the eleventh hour, in support of this same plan. We met with candidates running for office at every level of government, we met with Washington bureaucrats, lobbyists, local mayors, county commissioners and all manner of elected officials. Through it all, in spite of the odds, we were able to hold out through the election cycle of 2010 and the resulting lame duck session and fight off yet another inept and heavy-handed proposal.

 

Why was it that these politically privileged plans never made it out of the dark recesses of the chambers of those political elite? It was because of you. It was because when phone calls needed to be made, when letters needed to be written and a show of hands at a meeting was needed, you were ready to rise up.  I have seen what a coalition of communities coming together, fighting for something they believe in, can accomplish politically. It is bigger, better and stronger than any halfhearted special interest group could hope to buy or manufacture. 

It is my goal with this blog to provide a place where like-minded people can find information on current events and have a place where ideas can be shared that help promote local stewardship for our public lands. I would hope that the efforts of this blog have helped build the base of community support for issues surrounding public lands at Gold Butte. However, I need your help, in building an even larger community base to support Gold Butte. I need help in sharing our message to the community that cares about Gold Butte. The time will come again that we will need to fend off yet another special interest proposal that is trying to cash in on hundreds of thousands of acres to add to their trophy chest.  We need to stand ready as a community to yet again block the next unreasonable proposal.

I am not asking for money, I won’t spam you with emails or Facebook posts, I am not even asking you to come to any meetings, but I do need your help. 

http://www.facebook.com/#!/pages/Save-Gold-Butte/107781355916775

Please share the link to the Save Gold Butte Facebook page to your Facebook friends and invite them to “Like” this page. Share the link to Save Gold Butte to your blogger friends and suggest they follow the blog with their blogger account. Help me build the base of community support for Gold Butte and keep our public lands accessible for everyone to enjoy.

As Simple As Sending An Email

Recreation Area Management Plan & Comprehensive Trails Plan

The BLM Las Vegas Field Office is currently taking comments on the Recreational Management Plan for Southern Nevada. This is your opportunity to have an impact on the future management of our public land in Southern Nevada. It is as simple as sending an email. Please take the time to comment on how you use public lands and how you want this management plan to be shaped to preserve your access to public lands.

 

Comments are due by April 11th so send them today

Send your comments to:
Marilyn Peterson, BLM Project Lead : LVFO_RAMPS@blm.gov

The BLM does not recognize form letters anymore, so comments MUST be original.

You have asked for ways to be involved, well here it is, SEND IN YOUR COMMENTS.

State that you are concerned about keeping access open and providing as many OHV routes as possible.

List the activities that you and your family enjoy such as 4-wheeling, riding motorcycles, riding ATVs, scenic drives, picnics, primitive camping, hunting, hiking, bird watching, geo-caching, rock collecting, exploring, teaching my kids about the desert, star-gazing, practicing survival skills, mountain bike riding, riding horses, training hunting dogs, target shooting, ….

Please keep all routes OPEN that were marked on the maps from the RAMP scooping meetings as many people marked routes/roads that they want to be kept open.

Washes are a traditional travel route and have been used extensively throughout time; motorized travel in washes should actually be encouraged, rather than discouraged/closed as travel in washes gets ‘erased’ after even a small flood event. Floods are part of the natural environment and washes are in a constant state of change because of the nature of floods. Floods have a far greater impact on vegetation than a route down a wash does and traveling in washes helps contain ‘dust’ as that is an issue with some, especially in some areas.

Washes MUST be kept open for OHV use and access; travel in washes is a traditional means of travel. One minor flood event erases all traces of tracks; floods affect vegetation far more than OHV use in a wash. All washes, including washes in ACECs must be kept open to travel and should be signed open so that people don’t wonder if they can drive down that wash or not.

Throughout southern NV, there needs to be designated campsites, primitive, and more developed. There needs to be group campsites. Disturbed areas that are already being used should be designated. Parking and staging areas that are already being used should be designated as such and kept open. Pull offs are necessary along every route, especially those routes that are popular; pull offs allow for people to pass each other and prevents inexperienced drivers from pulling off the road in an unsafe area.

Most areas should be left primitive so that one can truly ‘get away’; the experience of exploring and discovering new places and new sights is one of the best ways to spend a day.

Historical markers and signs should be placed where appropriate; this helps people learn about the area’s past. Old mining sites should be signed with some history as well as old trails and routes and access to these areas kept open.

Springs should be marked on maps so people can visit them; water sources are where most of the wildlife are and that is one of the fun things-- to see wildlife, especially for kids.

Please take the time to write and send an email about how you use public lands for recreation and how the travel and management plans directly affect you and your access to public lands.

Your comments make the difference

The Year Mark

It has been a year since I started the Save Gold Butte website. We have covered a lot of ground 48 posts later. I have had the opportunity to be a part of and seen many people get involved, making calls, writing letters and going to meetings. I have spent my time doing this with the goal of working towards public lands stewardship at a community level. I initially got actively involved because the threat of legislative intervention was “imminent”. Well I cannot say what could have been or might have been, but through the hard work and dedication of many people, there has been no legislative intervention and our public lands are still open and being cared for at a local level.

I have met a lot of people, been to many meetings, been a part of some wonderful events and enjoyed many trips out to Gold Butte with politicians, congressional staffers, local citizens and my family. And that is what it is all about, getting out and enjoying our beautiful country. It is hard for people to dismiss the grandeur and beauty of this part of the country and not want to be a part of keeping it accessible for everyone.

Oddly enough I even found out that there are still some good people left at the BLM who believe in their multiple-use mission. One of my favorite events was the Public Lands Day activity held in September. For our project we started a site to be a repository for any and every piece of history that we could scrounge up about Gold Butte. One of our goals with the site is to raise awareness of every part of history tied to Gold Butte including our pioneer, cattle ranching and mining history which played a significant part in the development of southern Nevada and the west. The site is http://www.goldbuttehistory.blogspot.com/ we haven’t been as diligent as we could in getting our histories posted but it is a goal and we hope to continue with the effort. If you have anything that you could add please contact me.

If I could have a goal for the next year with Save Gold Butte it would be to raise awareness of the issues facing public lands, grow the local stewardship movement and encourage people to get out and enjoy this beautiful country. By getting out and soaking up this beautiful landscape you can’t help but want to be a part of keeping it open and accessible in a responsible manner. Protection with access is still my primary objective.

The flowers are blooming, the early spring grass is coming up and the weather is perfect for a Spring trip out to the Gold Butte country. Get out and enjoy it. I’ll see ya out there.

Learning the Hard Way

The recent discovery of vandalism at Red Rock National Conservation Area (NCA) at one of the rock art sites has been making the rounds on the news circuits. This kind of senseless and destructive vandalism is inexcusable and I hope that the vandals are caught. However, in trying to find the best of a bad situation, one thing that these recent actions have done is stir up the conversations around protection, education and enforcement of our public lands and cultural sites.

KNPR State of Nevada had Mark Boatwright, BLM Archeologist in Las Vegas, as a guest speaker on December 3^rd 2010. The conversation was centered on the vandalism at the rock art sites but the discussions also touched on some of the issues faced when managing cultural sites. In the interview Mark said, “The problems that we have with managing rock art sites is their accessibility. The closer that they are to the road, whether it’s an NCA or a monument; the more likely you are to see graffiti.  ”

In a post I wrote back in October, Defining Access, I worked to define that access is more than the simple definition of an open or closed road. I think that Mr. Boatwright complements this discussion with his quote about access, “The problems that we have with managing rock art sites is their accessibility.” I believe that access also encompasses the visibility or awareness of certain areas as well. Political designations are one tool that is used to raise awareness of specific areas to a much broader audience. These political designations include NCA, Wilderness, National Monument and the likes. To brand certain areas with distinct labels and highlight them on every map, publishing it on internet sites and printed media is making these areas more accessible by advertising their location. However, with this raised awareness there is also an associated risk that is being ignored.

While many are using the recent actions of vandalism at Red Rock as testimony to rush Gold Butte’s status as an NCA, I would counter that this is plain and clear evidence of why it should not be rushed. If an area like Red Rock that has been protected for many years, is much smaller geographically, and has more intense management and available resources than Gold Butte, and it is still getting vandalized, maybe pointing the spot light on Gold Butte is not in Gold Butte’s best interest. Now is not the time to earmark Gold Butte for the bureaucratic brand.

Now is the time, when Gold Butte is flying low on most people’s radar, to build a practical management plan. A management plan that focuses on education and enforcement objectives that can safeguard Gold Butte’s resources and accessibility for the general public. To label Gold Butte an NCA and highlight it on every map and print it on every national register is reckless and irresponsible. If everyone who believes they are as impassioned as they preach about what is best for Gold Butte, could focus their misguided energies on sustainable solutions for Gold Butte, positive achievements could be accomplished. However, if this agenda is pushed, it is being run at the risk of the irreparable consequences it carries to the physical sites and the general public.

It is time to foster new discussions instead of the same ol’ worn out rhetoric calling for the implementation of ineffective policies that do not work. It’s time to come up with sustainable solutions, instead of taking risks and putting our public lands in danger.

Defining Access

Access can be one of the most divisive issues when it comes to public lands. Many people equate or translate roads directly to access. This is a broad misconception. Roads are a part of access but they are only a piece of the puzzle. Access is not only the means by which we see the country but more importantly the experience and the perception that we get when we connect with a certain place. It is not enough to just see the landscape from a designated vantage point, it is our ability to be a part of, and connect with, the land in a variety of ways that makes a place accessible.


I can see Red Rock from my office window but does that mean I have access to it? If roads are only open to licensed, street legal vehicles, is that access? If the managing agencies quit maintaining the roads to be left to the natural forces of nature to close the road, which relieve them of direct accountability for the road closure, are they providing access to public lands? If hundreds of thousands of acres are manipulated into the idea of “Wilderness” does that allow my family and the public access to these places?

One person’s narrow definition of what access is, confines all of us to experience that place as they believe we should. One person’s political definition of what a landscape is does not change the physical characteristics or the history of that place. What it does, is force the rest of us to conform to their beliefs right, wrong or indifferent. It forces us to see and experience this place as they believe we should be allowed to. Regulation that manipulates the reality to conform to a group’s specific interpretation of a place limits access to individuals to see and experience a place. Creating authoritarian regulation that strips away the Sense of Place, which makes each individual landscape throughout our public lands so diverse, robs a community and future generations of that place.


Agencies that stop maintaining roads on public lands with the hopes that natural forces will close them off, is not responsible public land management. Temporary road closures with vague rationale, no timelines and no communication to the public is not responsible land management. These elusive tactics applied over a long period of time eventually lead to restricted access and erodes public trust in the managing agencies.

What happens to a “designated road” when it cuts through a “potential habitat” for an endangered species like the Arizona Bell Vireo, Banded Gecko, Banded Gila Monster, Blue Grosbeak, Desert Iguana, Desert Night Lizard, Desert Tortoise, Great Basin Collared Lizard, large Spotted Leopard Lizard, peregrine Falcon, Phainopepla, Southern Desert Horned Lizard, Southwester Willow Flycatcher, Summer Tanger, Vermillion Flycatcher, Western Burrowing Owl, Western Chickwalla, Western Red Tailed Skunk, Yellow Billed Cuckoo? You know what will happen, the road will be closed. It will probably be a “temporary closure” while it gets studied but nonetheless a closure. What about other external forces like fire and flood damage? We have already seen road closures due to the above listed items.

Access embodies a wide range of elements including the physical landscape, the complete history of the area, the roads, the means by which we travel the roads and the feelings that a person has about the place they are visiting. It is the overall experience that a person has while exploring the back country that makes it accessible. To rush into legislative action without fully understanding what Gold Butte is, restricts access to it. Labeling Gold Butte with an ambiguous political designation, to pacify special interests, compounds the issues surrounding public lands, it does not solve them. Trying to build a solution on a faulty foundation manufactured for politics, not better public lands management will not succeed in the long term. If we are going to build a sustainable solution that maintains the characteristics of Gold Butte, while preserving access to it, the solution will have to start from the ground up. This can only be accomplished with active involvement by the local communities and collaboration with the local land management agency.