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CONFLICT RESOLUTION
FEBRUARY 13, 1996
TRANSCRIPT
Elizabeth Farnsworth reports on a truce between between traditional opponents on the range.
ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: In much of the West, this threesome would be about as unlikely as Sitting Bull and General Custer riding together one hundred and twenty years ago. The riders are a third generation Arizona rancher and mountain lion hunter, a U.S. Forest Service official, and a botanist from the Nature Conservancy, the powerful environmental organization. They've joined forces in Southern New Mexico and Arizona in something called the Malpai Borderlands Group. It stands in stark contrast to what's happening elsewhere in the West.
DEMONSTRATORS: (shouting) Graze reform now! Graze reform now!
ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: This scene is more typical, a protest in Bozeman, Montana, by environmentalists out to limit cattle grazing on public lands. The charge:
that over-grazing causes erosion and other damage, especially in river beds and other vulnerable places. And in this confrontation in Nevada, an angry rancher aimed a bulldozer at an armed U.S. Forest Service agent in a dispute over a road on public lands. No one was hurt, but the incident, which was taped on home video, served notice that disagreements between ranchers and government agents can turn violent. In a million-acre triangle of mountain and high desert straddling the Arizona-New Mexico border, the Malpai Borderlands Group is taking a different course.
WARNER GLENN, Cattle Rancher: We're just really excited about how well we've come. I mean, we're working with the Forest Service and the BLM and the state land departments and, and the game and fish departments, both in Mexico and Arizona.
PETER WARREN, Nature Conservancy: The spirit of what's going on here is that people are trying to get together and recognize that they share common problems in trying to improve the condition of the land, and by working together, sense that we can actually make some progress toward solving some of our mutual problems, rather than blaming each other for those problems.
ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: It all began when the Nature Conservancy bought the 320,000-acre Gray Ranch in Southern New Mexico to preserve it from development and then sold it to a foundation set up by a local rancher who promised to preserve and
improve the land in cooperation with the Conservancy. That relationship widened to include about 15 local ranchers and two government agents. They hope to preserve and improve one million acres here. Their first goal was to bring back natural wildfires. Until federal agencies had started suppressing wildfires, they kept woody shrubs down and grasslands healthy. The Malpai Borderlands Group forged an agreement with the agencies to let some fires burn. Malpai executive director Bill McDonald let a fire burn on his land, and in late August, when he walked the area with other Malpai members, they found the fire had been partially successful in clearing the woody shrubs which made room for grasses to grow. Endangered species are another key problem for the Malpai group.
WARNER GLENN: Ranchers are, historically speaking, scared to death to have an endangered species found on his place because they think, well, then they're going to make you quit grazing. Well, what we're trying to prove is if there's an endangered species there and it is existing at the present time with grazing, that there's no reason why it shouldn't be continued to be that way.
ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: The endangered Shirakawa Leopard Frog was found on Malpai rancher Matt Magoffin's property. Because of a drought, he's been hauling 1,000 gallons of water a week since early 1994 to keep the rare amphibians alive.
MATT MAGOFFIN, Cattle Rancher: The Malpai Group has been helping me some on the, on the expense; they've donated some money, and they've offered to assist on some equipment if I need equipment. And Fish & Wildlife has helped some on the project.
ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: The Malpai Group's most controversial program is called the Grass Bank. It allows a rancher whose pastures are in trouble to graze cattle on neighboring lands.
BILLY DARNELL, Cattle Rancher: Without participating in the Grass Bank, I would frankly have been out of business here. I, I withstood droughts before for the lack of rain for one year, but three sustained years in a row really put a tough situation on the land here, the cattle, and the whole situation.
ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: As part of the Grass Bank program, Billy Darnell was able to move his hungry cattle to pastures on the neighboring Gray Ranch. The Malpai
Group paid the Gray Ranch for the service and in return, Darnell signed an agreement prohibiting the subdivision of his own ranch in perpetuity. Subdivisions are replacing ranches all over Arizona. And one of the key goals of the Malpai members is keeping their ranches relatively untouched and intact.
AL SCHNEBERGER, Livestock Weekly Digest: This is the Nature Conservancy's version of what ought to happen in the world. This is not the version of the community. This isn't something that they thought of.
ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: The Malpai Group's programs are drawing heavy fire from some ranchers in the area who are convinced the Nature Conservancy in league with the federal government is out to control the whole million-acre borderlands area.
AL SCHNEBERGER: We're talking about tying up certain options into perpetuity, and everybody's ears ought to go forward when that happens.
LEVI KLUMP, Cattle Rancher: They are selling or trading--and these are Al's words--a renewable crop, which is grass, for a non-renewable crop, which are the property rights.
AL SCHNEBERGER: This is something that came from the outside, and it's still being run by people from the outside.
WENDY GLENN, Malpai Group Coordinator: The reason that we have outsiders helping us and that we feel that we need them is because those are the people that have been determining what's happening to us. We can't any longer sit here in the middle of nowhere, minding our own business, and not be affected, because the government and the environmental people that are way away from us that don't understand us, are the ones that are making policy for us, whether we like it or not.
ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: The Malpai board and advisers, meeting at the Glenns' ranch, address some of the critics' concerns.
BILL McDONALD, Cattle Rancher: You know, this whole thing was not a grand scheme. I had never intended to have the Nature Conservancy involved in any significant way. It takes a lot to effect a change, and the Nature Conservancy is an extremely influential, powerful organization, and if, you know, it works, then they can be very helpful to us.
ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: And John, why do you want to do it? I mean, a lot of conservationists, a lot of groups would just not want to do this, because they would feel that they are somehow compromised.
JOHN COOK, Vice President, Nature Conservancy: Yeah. The mission of the Nature Conservancy is to protect the native plants and animals and habitats that support them, and increasingly, we realize that a, a preserve with a fence around it doesn't do the job, that really where we need to go is to support and be part of healthy rural economies, as well as straight biological systems.
BILL McDONALD: In those areas where a group like ours does not emerge or some middle ground does not emerge, there's going to be a tremendous loss. There's going to be a loss for those people who are fighting about it right now. And it's going to come when one side, the landowners' side, finally caves in and says, okay, we're off, and I'm going to turn around and I'm going to sell this thing for the highest dollar I can get out of it, and you're never going to see it the way it was again. And that'll be a sad day for everybody.
(MUSIC IN BACKGROUND)
ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: The Malpai members aren't alone in forging alliances with former enemies to save the ranching way of life. This is a gathering a hundred miles away in Dos Cabezas of a group called Common Ground, which has chapters in several Western states. Common Ground has also brought together environmentalists and ranchers to experiment with new range management techniques.
PEGGY MONZINGO, Cattle Rancher: (talking to pony) Oh, you are pretty. You are pretty.
ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: But even with these efforts, most ranchers in Arizona,
including Peggy Monzingo and her son, Ed Allen, remain outside the new organizations and are skeptical about cooperating with environmentalists or government agents. Also, the Monzingos worry that the new ideas for protecting the range will be too expensive to implement. Still, the Malpai group and Common Ground give Peggy Monzingo some confidence that ranchers will not always be seen as environmental villains.
PEGGY MONZINGO: And hopefully, we're getting a foot in the door with these
wonderful groups that are using imaginative, very expensive, but still workable methods of working with the agencies and with the environmentalists.
ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: And so, for some ranchers at least, there is some hope on the range, and a temporary peace in the new war for the West.
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