Kill Cowboy HB

Argues that the mythology of the cowboy should be replaced by new icons reflecting the realities of the modern West, including water shortages, overgrazing, and the need to protect western wildlife and wilderness

To environmentalists, wilderness is a valuable resource and a sacred place; to many ranchers, wilderness means eviction and government interference. Russell, herself a westerner, here tackles the complex and controversial issues of land health and wildlife in the West. Overgrazing is a major problem that can cause permanent damage. The figures are awesome: 80% of Forest Service and Bureau of Land Management regions, 50% of designated Wilderness Areas and 35% of National Wildlife Refuges are grazed. Fewer than 15% of all grazing permits remain with the original holders; "ranchers" include the Vail Ski Corp., the Union and Getty oil companies. In 1990, federal agencies spent $52 million more on programs dealing with livestock than they collected in grazing fees. Russell ( Songs of the Fluteplayer ) presents a number of viewpoints and profiles courageous individuals who are making an effort to restore the land. She stresses that although ranching traditions must be preserved, we need not graze 70% of the land. A provocative and enlightening account.
Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Take the cowboy, please, and send him packing, along with all his mythological baggage--or so argues Russell (Writing/Western New Mexico University) in this provocative and iconoclastic study. Huge tracts of public range are beginning to go lunar: badlands-scale erosion; dry and degraded stream beds, void of wildlife. Livestock overgrazing is much to blame, Russell says, and greedy, land-rapacious ranchers are the culprits. ``Greedy'' because this public land could support and benefit from a moderate grazing regimen--except that ``moderate'' isn't part of the stockman's vocabulary. Government institutions such as the Forest Service and the Bureau of Land Management--along with the powerful rancher's lobby in Washington--seem intent on keeping the status quo, while a wide array of groups and individuals have taken up opposition. Russell documents the struggles of these ranching opponents and their visions of a different land use, from Quaker to Earth First!-er. Much is afoot on public rangeland--from possible wolf-reintroduction and holistic resource-management to the loss of almost all riparian ecosystems due to cow-stomping and the poisoning of wildlife by ranchers who don't like the competition- -and Russell samples from all these waters. How can we restore degraded land? asks Russell. How can we have healthy systems of soil and water? How can humans fit into the landscape? The author, meanwhile, is aware that ranchers are in a predicament: How can they change their ways and still avoid economic ruin? The final chapter finds her in a philosophical mode, ruminating on Judeo- Christian ethics, biodiversity, Gary Snyder, and Native American attitudes toward the land. Russell takes a cultural icon and, in one bold stroke, brings it full circle from myth to menace. The West needs a new image, and she's given us many to choose from. -- Copyright ©1993, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

Russell, a resident of New Mexico's Mimbres Valley, presents the opposing viewpoints involved in the battle over grazing on the public lands in the West. She gives a personal touch to the discussion through interviews with people on both sides of the issue, and although an environmentalist herself, she allows both sides to have their say. Although she promises to sketch out a common ground between opposing views, Russell instead gets sidetracked by the "spiritual" aspects of the environmental movement. She is careful with her statistical sources, relying on those that are impartial. Her book is well written, and while it says nothing new to specialists, it is useful in providing some perspective on the public lands debate for the general reader. Suitable, but not essential, for most libraries.
- Stephen H. Peters, Northern Michigan Univ. Lib., Marquette
Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc.