Environmentalism is hiking a new path. So says the Bush administration.
Forget the days of top-down regulations from Washington. Federal policy-makers no longer know best. They never did.
That was the message preached by Bush administration officials last month at a three-day White House conference on "cooperative conservation."
Claiming to embark on a new era, federal managers say they are opening their arms to community groups, state and municipal governments and activists across the country.
"Environmentalism circa 1970 was all about conflict," Interior Secretary Gale Norton told local and state leaders, academics and environmental advocates who gathered in St. Louis.
"It was a real struggle to set the direction of the country," she said. "I submit that cooperation and win-win solutions are more sustainable than alarmism on both sides or winner take all conflicts."
At the center of this new environmentalism is the coined phrase of cooperative conservation -- one that invites the engagement of local officials with in-the-dirt knowledge of their communities.
Supporters of the concept say it is taking root and gaining momentum across the country.
But the approach -- which critics say can bypass environmental regulations -- is also eliciting complaints from those who characterize Bush as a Texas oilman gutting fundamental protections governing air pollution, clean water and land management.
"It strikes me as greenwashing," said Dan Geary, a Nevada representative for the National Environmental Trust.
Geary said what the administration tries to do on specific regional-based initiatives is far undercut by what he calls "the broad attack on the nation's environmental laws" on clean air, water and land use.
The environmental movement in the United States dates back to the early 1800s when writers and lawmakers began advocating for the protection of the country's natural resources in the face of Westward expansion.
As the country grew, a tug of war emerged between competing visions of how man should interact with the environment -- preservation vs. conservation.
In the late 19th century, preservationists dominated environmental thinking. Federal policy-makers put the interests of wildlife and wilderness ahead of the interest of humans, according to Jeffery Schneider, a professor who specializes in environmental science at SUNY at Oswego in New York.
But, the dynamic shifted with the election of President Teddy Roosevelt who embraced a conservationist policy, one that called for protection but also "wise use" of federal lands.
While he urged the creation of dozens of national parks and preservation of landmarks such as the Grand Canyon, Roosevelt also believed that "conservation means development as much as it does protection."
Through the decades, the environmental pendulum has swayed between the two schools of thought depending on the occupant of the White House. Schneider argued the pendulum has swung back to the conservationist side under the watch of President Bush.
But Bush says he is following a third path -- a middle road that demands compromise as the country populace continues to fill in the West.
Standing in front of towering sequoia at Sequoia National Park four years ago, Bush outlined a "new environmentalism for the 21st century."
"Our challenge is to work in partnership. We must protect the claims of nature while also protecting the legal rights of property owners," he said.
Last year Bush put the idea to paper when he issued an executive order directing his government to implement laws promoting cooperative conservation.
Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld -- whose department has sought exemptions from landmark environmental laws -- pointed to cooperative solutions as a way to train troops while preserving the environment. He emphasized that protection must be based upon science.
Not everyone is sold on "cooperative conservation."
To University of Nevada, Las Vegas history professor Hal Rothman, the Bush model signifies a return to the Reagan era of favoring industry over the environment.
"The Bush administration, because its roots are in Texas and Wyoming, they are trying to bring back extraction of natural resources," said Rothman, pointing to White House policies encouraging energy development in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge as well as timber harvesting in the national forests. "They've turned the keys over to industry and told them to as they please."
Others see Bush's approach as less threatening, saying it only makes sense to encourage local leaders to work with federal policy-makers to address land and water issues with flexibility in the law.
"The strength is in the diversity," said Alan O'Neill, executive director of Outside Las Vegas Foundation and a former National Park Service employee. "If people are a part of the process, they can more easily accept the outcome."
Some say it was the Clinton administration that began advocating a cooperative approach to address complex endangered species cases from North Carolina to Las Vegas.
Community activists contend Republican political strategists have simply seized upon a practice deployed for years by local and state officials around the country.
"Collaborative management of landscapes, whatever you call it, has been around a long time," said James Moore, Las Vegas' representative for the Native Conservancy. "Now it's being given its due recognition,"
Norton acknowledges she is simply shining the spotlight on a cooperative attitude, which she argues is only now blossoming in the form of community-driven initiatives from coast to coast.
In St. Louis, federal land managers exhibited community initiatives they said exemplified government-local cooperation in bids to save wetlands, coral reefs, wildlife and land.
Among the projects spotlighted was the 10-year partnership of Nevada, California, Arizona and federal leaders to ensure water continues flowing from the Colorado River to the region's cities and farms.
But the process is far from perfect, with participants acknowledging that disagreements sometimes don't get solved.
While leaders eventually struck a compromise, not everyone jumped on board, citing drawn-out bickering by bureaucrats who failed to broaden environmental protections.
Several environmental groups walked away from the table because the government failed to extend protections for habitat in Mexico.
But the $626 million Colorado River plan, which was finalized in April, creates more than 8,000 acres of new habitat in the river basin and aims to protects native fish and wildlife for the next 50 years.
And it keeps water streaming to Las Vegas.
There are other signs of environmental detente in the state.
Rothman, who wrote "The Greening of a Nation? Environmentalism in the U.S.," said environmentalists and sportsmen in Southern Nevada are more frequently joining forces to oppose industrial development on lands popular with fisherman and birdwatchers.
And earlier, Las Vegas Valley leaders discovered collaboration when faced with a federal directive to protect the desert tortoise.
On another initiative, four federal agencies each year decide which sensitive lands in Nevada should be set aside from development.
Using a 1998 federal law that authorizes government land sales in Clark County, managers on the ground select property for protection.
Some environmental groups are warming to cooperation.
The Nevada Nature Conservancy is working to find partners in a bid to keep the Southern Nevada Water Authority from drilling groundwater around the state.
Just west of Pahrump, a coalition is emerging on behalf of the Amargosa River system, the world's longest underground river, which runs 125 miles through Southern Nevada and California.
"It's only with a big coalition that we can have any hope," Moore said.
On the federal level, Norton said she plans to forward legislation to Congress to facilitate cooperation, although details have been sketchy.
"Even old federal agencies can learn new tricks like listening instead of dictating, like focusing on results instead of writing standardized rules," Norton said. "The real story lies in the details of each place."
Samantha Young is a reporter in the Stephens Washington Bureau.
Source: http://www.reviewjournal.com/lvrj_home/2005/Sep-18-Sun-2005/opinion/3347915.html