FLOOD05967 - Laserfiche WebLink

Home Browse Search

5 applies, of course, to the rivers as well. Westerners, and in some respects all Americans and citizens of the world, feel a proprietary interest in those lands and waters and that fact has made for a sea of change in public nawral resources policy. The stresses on our lands and waters, and the urgency of them, has led to, or has been accompanied by, an unprecedented explosion of ideas. Snstainability, ecosystem management, adaptive management, the new resource economics, biodiversity, environmental etbics -- none of those terms was part of the public discourse until just a few years ago. Of course, each of these ideas is vague still -- they are, after all, very young -- but already we're starting to put them into practice on the ground. The importance of these events is heightened by the new administtation, but not in the narrow sense that a new political party has moved into power in Washington or even that serions proposals to revamp many of the traditional laws and policies dominate the stage on Capitol Hill. Rather, the most profound change is coming up from the ground, from western communities, from young people in the local, state, tribal, and federal agencies. In staff offices all across the West, in the parks, the forests, the refuges, even on the public domain lands, there are growing numbers of young people imbued with bold ideas just a few years old. The people who were at the top, burdened by ideas that once fit an earlier and different time, had kept the lid on. Ultimately, people like Bruce Babbitt, AI Gore, Betsy Reike, Dan Beard, Jack Ward Thomas, and George Miller will be facilitators who will allow and encourage new ideas and energy to germinate and rise up from the ground. The last factor, which in my judgment is a good deal more important than it might first appear to be, is the flowering of western writing in recent years. There has been as much good writing in the American West over the past generation as anywhere in the world. Modem authors have depicted our history and our contemporary places, peoples, and emotions .- our dreams and our barriers. We have learned a great deal from this body of literature and, ultimately, the West has gained a sense of itself. You can see it all across the West, and certainly on the Colorado Plateau. We have Tony Hillerman's magical stories of the land and its Indian people, and Ann Zwinger's close-to-the-ground writing of the desett canyons, gulches, and washes. We have been given the searing poems of Hopi poets Ramson Lomatewama and Michael Kabotie. Whatever view one may have of Ed Abbey's politics, it is hard to deny his love of the land and his ability to write of it evocatively. He loved the desert and, most of all, he loved the least of its plants and animals. He drew us closer to the Colorado Plateau with his honesty, accuracy, and mystery: he wrote, for example, of the aridity and staying power of desert life by observing and admiring "a degenerate juniper tree . . , an underprivileged juniper tree, living not on water and soil but on memory and hope. And almost alone." Utah writer Terry Tempest Williams has brought still other dimensions. Her writing is laced with spirituality, sensuality, and the stripped-down urgency of simplicity. She has given us new ways to look at many different things, including water. This is from Coyote', Canyon: The woman returned to the place of her childhood, where she last remembered her true nature. She returned to the intimacy of a small canyon that for years had loomed large in her imagination, and there she set up camp. . . . For days, the woman wandered in and out of the slickrock maze. She drank from springs and ate the purple fruit of prickly pears. Her needs were met simply. Because she could not see herself, sbe was unaware of the changes -- how her skin became taut and tan, the way in which her hair relaxed and curled itself. She even seemed to walk differently as her toes spread and gripped the sand. . . . Within minutes, the wash began to swell. The woman. . . sought higher ground up a side canyon. . . She was prepared to watch if a flash flood came. And it did. The clear water turned muddy as it began to rise, carrying with it the force of wild horses running with a thunderstorm behind them. Tbe small stream, now a river, rose higher still, gouging into the sandy banks, hurling rocks, roots, and trees downstream. . . She pulled her legs in and wrapped her anns around her shins, resting her cheekbones against her knees. She closed her eyes and concenttated on the sound of water bursting through the silence of the canyon. Rivers Without Boundaries 1994