It’s accepted by the time when their map comes out?
Yes, exactly. They like to take credit for anything that’s forced on them to show what sensitive guys they are.
Nevermind that they would have happily cut it they hadn’t been forced to be more sensitive. I went around with the Chemult [District] Ranger a few years ago … once they started administratively protecting some of these old growth areas on the Winema [National] Forest, this guy was thinking that maybe they could design a little brochure for the public and people could go see some of these areas. [He asked about] which areas would be suitable for driving through, and where we could do some little hikes, or maybe build a trail. He gave us a little introduction about how this was really neat that the Forest Service, gosh, was doing this and nobody litigated or anything. I always enjoy when people make these comments … they don’t know. We know [for] every line on the map, somebody fought for that area– including Crater Lake National Park–but nobody remembers who or when. Other places people just sort of assume that it’s always been a state park or always been protected, and who would destroy anything as magnificent as that, you know. [For] every one of these places, there’s somebody who stood up for it or it wouldn’t be there.
I was thinking about some other issues that came to the forefront after the wilderness bill [of 19841 passed. One of those was public lands grazing. ONRC has, at times, taken some innovative approaches to things. How did a program like Cow Cops arise?
The grazing has been another frustration as an impact on public lands and I guess I’d say that we ran hot and cold on devoting more resources at one time or another on that issue. I think that if everybody just went all out and jumped on the cows more, we could make some changes. So why don’t we? Again, it’s because the big trees are falling. It’s not to say that the cattle aren’t every bit as big an impact on the land as the logging, it’s just that we can still get the range back in our opinion. Some of the people who are real big desert advocates and anti-grazing would probably think that this is too broad brush and simplifying it, because you can point to numerous examples where we are losing salmon not just from the sediments [caused by] logging but caused by grazing as well. We sort of made the decision that when the big trees are falling, that’s the most critical. But if you asked me what’s the most endangered ecosystem in Oregon, I would say that it’s native meadow. Think about it, if [a piece of land is] flat and has grass on it, either it’s in agriculture or has cattle grazing on it. Finding little pieces of land that are really natural [is difficult] so that’s why I’m so taken by the Klamath Marsh [even] though, yes, it has been grazed. You still basically have a natural meadow wetland that’s 38,000 acres in size that has only a small amount of grazing. Late in the fall they put some cows up on the north end. A neighbor across from me here used to have a garden, but it always failed because it freezes in July. I said, “Look, Carolee, if you could grow your tomatoes out here, instead of a marsh this would be a sugar beet farm (laughs).
