June 15, 2011

Reflections on Wildlife Conservation
by Andrea Stephens

Photo credit - Jed Winer

Today we are wrapping up our time in Salmon, Idaho. On a beautiful day up McDevitt Creek, on a BLM parcel, we asked the Wildlife in the West students to take an hour, go find an inspiring spot to sit—by the willow thickets along the creek or on the aromatic sage-covered hillside—and pull together their thoughts on the role of human communities in conservation. Following is a sampling of their insights.

When people with opposing views take the time to walk away from their perception of reality and look at the world from someone else's reality, there is a good chance they will come away knowing the issues they disagree on are much more complicated than they ever thought. Understanding that our core values vary drastically and yet are all important is the greatest stride conservation has the opportunity to take.
- Brenna, University of Montana

I've learned that much of the most valuable land for conservation and restoration is in private ownership. It's important to be able to work together with private landowners towards an environmentally sustainable future without displacing them or making it economically unfeasible for them to maintain their land. At the same time, private landowners need to be able to understand the importance of conserving critical habitat to maintain biodiversity. In my mind, we need to find a healthy way to, as a rancher told us, manage the land so that everything on it can make a living, not just the humans.
- Hanna, Willamette University

I was most inspired by Dave Ellis (Salmon valley rancher) who lives his life as a steward of the land. He mentioned several times that wildlife have just as strong a claim to the land as people. Dave is careful about where he grazes and the intensity of grazing in order to keep the land healthy and productive. He also cares deeply about his animals... Stewardship begins with understanding the natural history around us, and continues with a genuine care and respect. Through communication and cooperation, local communities can share ideas and successes like those of Dave Ellis to maintain the fragile landscape around us for generations to come.
- McKenna, Iowa State University

I have recognized a few key concepts regarding the role of humans in the conservation arena. First and foremost is that the realm of conservation is the human realm. Stakeholders are most inclined to recognize the importance of human involvement in conservation issues and begin to understand other perspectives through face to face interaction on a community scale, as opposed to solely across the expanse of a national courtroom floor. Although community consensus-building is not the norm for managing environmental conflicts over endangered species and sustainable land use, such efforts represent an emerging conflict management framework that did not exist a century ago. I pointed this out to a rancher in Salmon who was expressing hopelessness at the prevalence of rugged individualism and disregard for the larger community and environment expressed by the majority of ranchers in the West. He smiled at my optimism and said, "You know, Rebekah, that's true."
- Rebekah, Humboldt State University

Photo credit - Jed Winer

One of the main themes that I have seen through my experience with Northwest Connections is that policy flows through what the public views as important. All of the decision-making behind conservation is driven by what the public knows. In order to have a healthy rural community, there needs to be local knowledge of the species and landscapes. In a community, there are biologists, ranchers, local producers, small business owners. Everyone in those communities brings to the table their own aspects of conservation. Chris Servheen (USFWS Grizzly Bear Recovery Coordinator) said, "the future of wildlife is based on how humans live, work and recreate in their habitat." In reality, conservation is not up to lawmakers, government, or the court system, it's up to people's willingness to live among nature.
- Kaytlan, Iowa State University

Before starting this course, I mostly thought about the bad things that people were doing to the land and wildlife, not so much about people living on the land with the wildlife. I have learned to not focus so much on removing people from the wild, but to help them live as a part of the wild. Human communities need to be willing to live in such a way that allows for the continuation of all species. In a rural area, this can mean changing your irrigation practices to keep streams in a condition favorable for chinook, steelhead and sockeye. In a more urban area, it can mean buying your food from a more sustainable local source rather than supporting the industry chain that forces ranchers to abuse their land just to scrape by.
- Erin, Iowa State University

I have come to realize that it is not just strict policies or efficient law enforcement that best promotes conservation. It is the residents of the small, local communities and their cooperation and understanding that truly makes the difference with conservation. It is much more effective for grassroots efforts to come together in small communities and collaboratively decide on their own conservation strategies than it is for a government official to come try and tell the landowners what to do.

Organizations like the Blackfoot Challenge are so awesome to me because I love that they are helping residents coexist with large carnivores – residents who normally may not have the funds to carry out such projects on their own (such as electric fence installations). I feel that organizations like this are super effective at helping residents living in areas with endangered wildlife become more tolerant of the Endangered Species Act.
- Kinsey, Virginia Tech

Humans in rural communities need to meet somewhere in the middle regarding restoration efforts. We need to bring native fish back with education, by repairing their native habitats, and by learning from our previous mistakes as humans. The hard part is discovering how these projects can appeal to everyone in the community.
- Michael, Iowa State University

Even if humans don't take the dominionistic view of nature, we as humans have the ability to control what happens with wildlife and the environment. Whether we control it in a bad or good way is our choice. Some individuals set fences around their livestock to keep wolves out of them, some people use bear-resistant trash cans to keep bears out of trash, and some ranchers set fences around riparian areas to keep cattle out of the streams to allow for clean, clear salmon and steelhead spawning gravels. These efforts make an overall difference; they may not affect the entire world, but put together they have a huge impact.
- Eric, Iowa State University

While big environmental groups, government agencies and others argue over big issues such as wolf delisting, a lot of progress is being made on the local level towards solutions to living with these creatures. We toured one ranch in Salmon with Jerry Myers from Trout Unlimited. He told us about the deal made with the rancher, who got an irrigation pivot in exchange for allowing Trout Unlimited to install a fence to keep his cows away from the river. While such action may be required by the government eventually, a proactive, cooperative approach benefits both the ranchers and the salmon.
- Jed, University of Massachusetts

Before coming to the west, I had vivid, romanticized dreams of the wilderness of Montana. I pictured hundreds of unexplored acres of forested mountains, filled with wildlife untouched by humans. I thought that hunting was a sport only played by those who do not understand or appreciate nature. If it wasn't for Wildlife in the West, I would probably still have these preconceived notions about the other side of the country. I have come to realize that most of the land in Montana and Idaho is public and managed by the federal government. However, the challenge of managing wildlife is that their habitat not only lies on public land, but private as well. For this reason, I've learned that communities play a vital role in conservation. In each town we've traveled to, it was clear that a species, whether it was grizzlies, lynx, wolves or salmon, could only recover if the community supported it.
- Sara, University of Vermont

Photo credit - Jed Winer