Letter to the Editor (9/29/19)
Let’s set an example for civil discourse in the Owyhees
In discussing the fate of the Owyhee Canyonlands, most of the focus has been on such matters as grazing allotments and the protection of endangered species. Population growth has hardly been mentioned. It is therefore most appropriate this issue be raised by Mike Hanley, a leader of the Sagebrush Rebellion and participant in the Owyhee Initiative, in a guest opinion in The Argus Observer on Sept. 22.
As Hanley suggests, without a solution to the question of protection, demand from the burgeoning population of metropolitan Treasure Valley for recreation and leisure opportunities threaten to diminish the quality of habitat and riparian zones for supporting animal and plant life of all kinds.
Ironically Hanley’s warning follows publication of three studies in Nature and Nature GeoScience that conclusively refute the notion that increasing temperatures of the last century are but a part of nature’s normal cycle. The studies compellingly support the conclusion that humans are significant contributors to climate change. For the Owyhee, these two developments – population growth and climate change – portend intensified wildfire risk, degradation of habitat for wildlife and forage for livestock, adverse impacts on aquatic species, and increasing drought, not to mention other impacts yet unforeseen. Change will come willy nilly. To direct that change to diminish the impacts is in the interest of all. However, collaboration of the sort Hanley describes leading to the Owyhee Initiative will be required and meaningful protections must be devised. Involved parties need to come together, and be willing to compromise. The sooner this is understood, the better the chance of reaching producing the solutions needed to support continued viability of the Owyhee Basin.
The nation as a whole seems currently to have forgotten the importance of civil discourse to the functioning of a viable democracy. Perhaps those of us concerned about the Owyhee can remind them by example.
Bill Crowell,
Portland