Public Lands in Public Hands

As of September 7, there were 76 large fires raging in the American west with a total of 1,484,353 acres burned. Over a million of these are in Montana alone. That’s 1,614 square miles, more than half of Laramie County (2,688 sq. miles).

But numbers can’t tell the human story. It’s not just trees burning, but homesteads and history. Among the 530 structures destroyed there was beloved Sperry Chalet, a Glacier National Park tradition since 1913. Countless livestock and people have been displaced. Air quality is making breathing difficult for all of us, and downright dangerous for some.

It’s a good time to think about the people who are closest to the fire-lines.

Photo by Preston Kiehl

First, let us take the time to thank God for the tens of thousands of firefighters who have been working long hours in dangerous conditions since mid-July. Pray for their safety, and for the family of Brent Witham who gave his life fighting the Lolo Peak fire in Montana.

Think also about the people who live and work on these burning lands. They are the tenants of the American people. They pay us rent, and we promise them use of the land in return. “Dual use” means that public lands are not just nature preserves, they are also working ranches. We have invited real people to live on the land and populate it with livestock. We are responsible to manage it well.

For these people, wildfires are an unmitigated disaster. They displace untold numbers of sheep and cattle fleeing the approaching fires. Where undergrowth is thick and roads are scarce, their keepers have no way of moving them to safety. They must fend for themselves, sometimes trapped by fences and locked gates.

Not only do wildfires rob ranchers of feeding ground they had counted on, they also pollute entire drainages and burn fences costing up to $10,000 per mile. And it’s not just the fires themselves. Policies that prevent ranchers from clearing deadfall and thinning undergrowth increase the fire hazard while decreasing the grazing value of land become inaccessible to both livestock and big game.

While ranchers see wildfires as disastrous for their livelihoods and the forests they live on, wildlife biologists managing the federally owned land tell me that wildfires are a natural part of the ecosystem and “a very good thing, so long as they are not destroying people’s homes.”

They welcome fire for its ability to improve the range in the long run. It clears away the deadfall and undergrowth that reduces grazing value, and makes room for meadows of lush grass. Naturalists also calculate that the water pollution is only temporary. They cringe when entire ranges are lost to fire because herds can be devastated by winterkill. But justify the loss as a necessary evil.

Here are two wildly different views of wildfires. Ranchers want to manage the land to prevent them, while naturalists want to manage the land by letting them burn. But they do agree on one thing: both see the accumulation of deadfall and underbrush as mismanagement of the land.

Where they disagree is whether proper management is by human ingenuity, or by random lightning strikes. “Log it, graze it, or watch it burn,” is not just a slogan. It precisely articulates the actual preferences of opposing viewpoints. Some would rather log our public land and graze it, others really would rather watch it burn.

At the end of the day, it is a question of religion. For those who believe that we were placed on earth “to tend and to keep it” (Genesis 2:15), human efforts to manage the undergrowth and use it productively are natural. For those who believe that man is an evolutionary accident arising from random chance, chance lightning strikes and a hands-off policy are the natural approach.

If you believe mankind is a cancer on the land, why would you have him manage it? If you think we are the crown of God’s creation, why would you not?

Lately we have been hearing a lot about “Public lands in public hands.” It’s a compelling slogan because it is another thing that we can all agree on. Nobody wants to see our public lands in the hands of a few private individuals, or corporate interests. However, this basic agreement does little to help us unless we ask the underlying question: what, exactly, are “public hands”? Are we the public, or is only the federal government public?

“Public hands” that care about the ranchers who are closest to the land are ultimately human hands. They can harness centuries of know-how to cultivate the land according to the best principles of dual use. But “public hands” that are distant decision-makers in Washington, D.C., have a history of being hands-off. This is management by random chance, not by people put on the land to tend and to keep it.

How we decide this question directly reflects our attitude toward creation and its Creator. At the same time, it will reflect our love for the people whom we have asked to live and work on the land that we own. Ultimately, to love one is to love the other.