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Alaska Today, Southwest Tomorrow

By Tom Fry

Found in: | Inside | Politics |

"I hope that the United States of America is not so rich that she can afford to let these wildernesses pass by. Or so poor that she cannot afford to keep them."

- Margaret Murie

The Porcupine caribou herd is mustering to make its annual trek over muskeg and tundra under a sky growing lighter by the day to the coastal plain of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. While there, 50,000 calves will be born, continuing a cycle of migration, death, and renewal that has been ticking for thousands of years. The natives who live on the plain, the Gwich'in, call themselves "the Caribou people" and fear that this herd, part and parcel of their culture, will soon go the way of the buffalo of the Great Plains. That fear, sadly, is not misplaced.

In Seattle recently, I heard that Congress included Arctic drilling in the FY06 budget resolution. Seattle, normally a rainy city, was in the midst of a spate of sun. But with my arrival came the clouds, and I wasn't appreciative of the omen.

In budget wrangling, our elected elite chose to assume revenue from drilling in the Arctic Refuge. (Sneaky, back door kinda stuff). Folks in the know of complicated D.C. maneuvering, such as policy analysts and appropriation process experts, were undoubtedly disappointed. That Washington had grown this bold, this callous, to popular will was even more disturbing than usual.

But the Arctic drilling provision makes an already controversial budget even more contentious. Congress hasn't passed a budget resolution in the past two years and if the budget doesn't pass then Arctic drilling doesn't become law. A battle lost - the war rages on.

This war over saving the Porcupine herd, the habitat they depend on, and the culture on which it depends, is as much a war over place as it is a war over our national conservation ethic. If the Arctic falls, then no place, no ideal, is sacred. It is, after all, a wildlife refuge. Heritage and future generations ultimately become abstract notions and lose any meaning.

Sure, the Arctic is a far off and distant land. But it shares something with similar places in the Lower 48: the moniker "refuge." Whether the biological heart of an ecosystem or simply sweeping rural vistas, a refuge offers a respite from the speed, clutter, and crowding of modern society - for people and critters. To the Porcupine herd, refuge is a designated place. To us hairless, hapless bipeds who place value on the simplicity of place, refuge is the nooks, crannies, open fields and valleys of this place we call home.

If reason and passion and arguments for critters and people cannot sway a political machine hell-bent on delivering crude at any cost, then what justification is there for not plugging our own backyard refuges? Why not tap the HD mountains for coal-bed methane? Why not rattle the s-t out of Canyon Country looking for gas?

Why not say to hell with local opinion and road the b'jesus out of places like Roan Plateau or Otero Mesa in search of black gold, Texas tea? Why not auction off to the highest energy bid our public lands currently considered by Congress for wilderness designation? Why not support a pump-jack for every 1-, 10-, or 100-acre farm? If the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge is not off limits, nothing is.

In Seattle, on that overcast, humid day, I couldn't help but think of our Southwest. Of turkey hunting south of Pagosa. Of stumbling across petroglyphs in eastern Utah. Of napping in aspen groves beyond the clamor of civilization. Of solitary hikes over rough, sparse, and utterly silent landscapes. Of a sign off Highway 160 that opined that it's better to see a cow than a condo. Of these refuges akin to rooms in my home, and of the fate of the Arctic. Suddenly, that coastal plain didn't seem so far away.

In A Sand County Almanac, Aldo Leopold said, "Having to squeeze the last drop of utility out of the land has the same desperate finality as having to chop up the furniture to keep warm."

I'd like to think that our conservation ethic has not become so poor that we've become that desperate.

Tom Fry is a Four Corners expatriate who fights on the front lines with The Wilderness Society in Denver. These rants represent his hypercynical nature alone.