09 Lavigne Connection

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BOOK

REVIEWS

THE STATE OF THE NATURAL

RESOURCES

LITERATURE

Connection Lines: Re-Defining

Western and

U.S. Environmental Policy:

A

Review Essay

by Peter

Lavigne*

The American West as a region has

always been iconic and defined

by

images of opposites: cowboys

and

Indians;

rogues, ruffians, and heroes.

In

the

late

twentieth and now

the twenty-first

centuries, a re-definition and

re-thinking of conservation,

environmentalism,

and

the

West

as a region

is

occurring.

In

contrast to the

clearance of the

red

man in the name of

progress

so

bluntly

proclaimed in the

1930s

film

The

Plow That

Broke

the

Plains,

1

the re-definition

of

a complex

and

more

interesting

West includes

the

re-emergence of native people's

power and re-invigorated re-emerging

cultures,

as well as a more complicated

set of battles over the landscape,

culture, and

future

of

the

region.

In an extraordinary

set of books published in the last

few years,

these

new themes

are

elucidated in a

series

of connection lines or,

as

Curt

Meine posits,

Correction

Lines,

the

place[s]

where theory and reality

meet.

These

correction lines

are

also reflected

in the themes of reconnection,

restoration, and

abolition in

Chip Ward's solution-seeking

book

Hope s

Horizon:

Three

Visions for Healing

the American Land.

3

We see

these same

themes in Paul VanDevelder's tale

Coyote

Warrior:One

Man,

hreeTribes

and

the Trial

That Forged

a Nation. Finally,

the connection and correction

lines

reach deep into the Southwest

with

John

Sherry's tale

of

the evolution of

Dines CARE

a Navajo organization

dedicated

to

protecting

Navajo

culture

and the environment, and the

mysterious and

still

unsolved murder of Dine

activist Leroy Jackson in 1993 in Land,

Wind and Hard Words: Story of

Navajo Activism.

4

Visiting Professor of

Environmental

Studies and

Director of

the

Colorado

Water

Workshop at Western State

College

of

Colorado

in

Gunnison. Thanks to

research assistant

Cindy

Ryals for

her

ideas

and

always helpful edits and to

the

extraordinary

writers of these

books.

1.

PARE

LORENTZ, THE PLOW THAT BROKE THE PLAINS

(1936),

THE RIV R (1937)

DVD

by

Naxos Rights

Int'l

Ltd. (2007)).

2. CURT MEINE, CORRECTION

LINES: ESSAYS ON LAND,

LEOPOLD

AND

CONSERVATION

1-2

2004). Meine uses the land surveyor's correction

line,

the

east-west

line

compensating for the

curvature

of the earth in the

square

grid system

used

to implement Jefferson's land survey

across North America, as the

metaphor

for the need to shift one's orientation

in the

face

of new

information,

the place

where

theory and

reality

meet.

3.

CHIP

WARD,

HOPE S

HORIZON:

THREE

VISIONS FOR

HEALING

THE

AMERICAN

LAND

2004).

4 JOHN W SHERRY, LAND,

WIND AND HARD WORDS: A STORY OF NAVAJO

ACTIVISM

(2002).


2/12

N TUR L

RESOURCES JOURN L

Correction

Lines

In

Correction

Lines

Meine uses the land surveyor's correction

line,

the east-west line compensating for the curvature of the earth in the square

grid

system used to

implement

Jefferson's land

survey

across North

America, as the metaphor for the need to shift one's orientation

in the face

of new information. Author of the definitive biography of Aldo Leopold,

5

as

well as editor of

collections

on

Wallace Stegner

6

and Leopold,

7

Meine

has

written a

sweeping

and insightful three-part analysis of the progression of

ideas

in

environmental and cultural

conservation.

Part

one,

Conservation's

Usable Past,

looks

at the early history

and

development of

the idea and

practice of conservation. Meine suggests that we are struggling to find a

coherent

and

comprehensive

narrative

of

conservation's past.

8

Rather than look at the documentary

ephemera

of meetings and

legislation from

the

last

two centuries

of

environmental

protection

and

conservation efforts,

Meine traces the evolution of

conservation

thinking

and

practice by examining what Leopold called the oldest task in human

history:

to

live

on a piece of land without spoiling

it.

9

Through analysis of

waves of cultural and environmental

extirpation,

Meine

links the nadir of

North

American tribes at Wounded Knee, Frederick Jackson Turner's

closing

of

the frontier, and the loss

of

the

great white

pine forests of

the East

and Midwest

because

of erosion and

exhaustion of agricultural

soils

to

twentieth century Progressive Era themes of forestry, fishery,

water,

wildlife,

outdoor

recreation,

and wilderness management.

Moving on

to

the beginnings of systemic

thinking in conservation

and the

ultimate

development of the

disciplines

of

ecology and

conserva-

tion

biology, Meine

circles back to what

he

calls Leopold's Fine

Line.

10

Leopold

was

the prototype for and a master of a

still

rare species of con-

servationist. He was a serious scientist and investigator who

also became

a

master

at

applying

the

always

unfulfilled scientific quest for certainty

to

the inherent uncertainties (and

oft irrationalities)

of policy and

law. More

importantly, in Meine's construction, Leopold

spent

most of

his career

working

on the

line between

utility

and preservation,

something

that Meine

argues

iscritical to

confronting

ultimate

conservation questions.

2

Tracing

Leopold's lifelong analysis of the age

old

conflict between

utility and

5 CURT MEINE ALDO LEOPOLD:

HIS

LIFE AND WORK 1988).

6. WALLACE STEGNER AND THE CONTINENTAL VISION

(Curt Meine ed., 1997).

7.

THE ESSENTIAL ALDO

LEOPOLD

(Curt eine

Richard

L. Knight eds.,1999).

8.

Id

at

9. Id at 14.

10.

Id ch. 4.

11. Id at 92

12.

Id

[Vol 47

00 0


3/12

BOOK

REVIEWS

beauty

13

through

his voluminous

publications,

Meine argues

that

the

modem

conservation/environmental

movement needs

to

broaden

its

focus

on the

use-versus-preservation

debate

and recognizes,

as Leopold

did and

struggled with,

the

broader

spectrum

of issues

regarding ecosystem

protection,

as well as

the

many gray

areas

and interrelationships

between

preservation,

protection,

and

restoration.

Correction

Lines

serves several niches

in

the

pantheon

of

conserva-

tion

and

environmental writing.

First,

as discussed above,

it

uniquely

traces

the

evolution

of

the

environmental movement

in

the United

States.

1

4

Second,

for Leopold

readers

and admirers, Correction

Lines

is vital

for

its

contribution

to an in-depth

understanding

of Leopold's

life

and

work,

especially

for

the

vast

majority

of readers only

acquainted with

him

through

his

most famous

and final work,

A

Sand

County

Almanac.

Leopold's

writings in SandCounty

Almanac are

enriched

and

expanded

by the

middle

section

of Meine's

book,

including

the essays Emergence

of an Idea ;

Giving

Voice to Concern ;

17

Moving

Mountains ;

s

and,

especially,

The

Secret

Leopold.

19

In that

chapter, Meine notes

the

tendencies

to divorce

Leopold's

publications

from his

practice

2 °

and how people

tend to

hold

him as

a mirror

to their own

environmental

responses.

1

Finally, in Part

Three

of Correction

Lines

Meine ties

the first

two

sections

together

with two

of

my

all-time

favorite

essays,

Inherit the

Grid '

and

Home,

Land,

Security.

Struck

by the way a grid

survey

road

through

his home

territory

of

Sauk County,

Wisconsin

cuts crisply

in

straight lines

through natural

and

cultural

landmarks

as

if contours

or

curves

never

existed, Meine

examines how

the

grid

system gives

the forces

of economic

doctrines,

land policies,

and

traditions

of

faith,

philosophy,

commerce

and science..

.exceptional

opportunity

to express themselves

2

'

13.

Id. at

114.

14.

Meine's

analysis

here whets

the

reader's

appetite for

an

as

yet unwritten

book

a

comprehensive

history of the evolution

of

the

environmental/conservation

movement.

Several

partial biographies

of the movement

exist. See e.g. WILLIAM

CRONON ANTHOLOGY

UNCOMMON

GROUND

1995) and BENJAMIN

KuINEs

FIRST

ALONG THE RIVER:

A

BRIEF

HISTORY

OF

THE U.S.

ENVIRONMENTAL

MOVEMENT.

However,

these

and

others suffer

from incompleteness

and/or

superficial

analysis.

In Correction

Lines

Meine

appears

uniquely suited

to

take on

a

comprehensive

history

of this sort,

able to

do

for

the

North

American history

of

environmental

NGOs and

activists

what

Marc Reisner's

CadillacDesert 1986) did

for

western

water.

15.

ALDO

LEOPOLD,

A SAND

COuNTY ALMANAC AND

SKETCHES

HERE AND THERE

1949).

16. MEINE,

supranote 5, at 117.

17. Id.

at 132.

18. Id.

at 148.

19. Id.

at 161.

20. Id

at 179.

21.

Id. at 180.

22. Id. at 187.

23.

Id. at

202.

all

7]


4/12

NATURAL RESOURCES JOURNAL

on

the environment and

environmental, political,

and social policy of the

continent.

The

final

chapter,

Home, Land,

Security,

clearly

and

carefully

ties

the safeguarding of our land,

water, biotic

and

human

communities

24

to the shock

of

the events of 9 11

and

the reactions to

them

at a September

10-12, 2001 St.

Louis,

Missouri gathering of luminaries in conservation

biology and wildlife

preservation.

Meine goes on to link these events to

the

present

unfulfilled promise of Homeland

Security. Meine says, in closing,

that

conservation

and conservationist must help to reclaim the future, '

noting

that

[c]onservation, in this changed world, is in crisis,

and it

is not

something

different from

the security crisis

(or the other

crises) we

face.

The

acute

acts

of

terror

we have suffered

are

not separate

from, or

an excuse to ignore, the chronic acts of

deprivation, injustice,

impoverishment, and

environmental

degradation

that

conservation must

also seek

to address....

The crisis was

building long

before terrorists seized

the

world's attention,

foreshortened

our view,

and

enthroned

fear.

2

6

First

They Killed

JohnWayne

Chip

Ward's

Hope s

Horizon:

Three

Visionsfor

Healing

the

American

nd

7

indirectly

takes on this challenge

of

healing with its

themes

of recon-

nection,

restoration, and

abolition.

Like

Meine

and

VanDevelder, Ward

covers a broad mix of

material

ranging

from

the

ever-growing

wildlife

tracking groups around the

world,

to the landscape-scale ecosystem

protec-

tion

and restoration efforts

of the Wildlands

Project,

and later to the

efforts

to

decommission

the Glen

Canyon

Dam in a

chapter entitled

A Ridiculous

Idea Whose

Time

Has

Come.

8

Modeling its title, Ward's book

is

hopeful

and oriented

toward visionary,

yet practical,

solutions

and

action. He

portrays a remarkable collection

of individuals, including Sue Morse,

Rich

Ingebretsen,

Allison Jones and Jim Catlin, Lisa Gue, and others whose

ideas

and

hard

work have

inspired

legions.

Section one,

Reconnection, tells

the story of interconnecting

efforts in the

late

1980s

and early 1990s to form

the Wildlands

Project,

a

science-based

action

effort

that would transform

land

protection

activities

throughout North

America

(and

later worldwide) by marrying the new

24. Id. at

230

25. Id

at

246.

26.

Id.

27 WARD,

supra

note

3.

28.

Id. at

187.

1002

[Vol.

47


5/12

BOOK REVIEWS

science

of

conservation

biology

to

environmental

activism.

29

Individuals

involved

in these efforts

included Doug Tomkins, the

entrepreneur

and

philanthropist;

activist and

theorist

Dave Foreman;

scientists Michael

oUkl

Reed

Noss, and

George

Wuerthner; activist

David

Johns; and

a handful

of

others.

These

efforts

set several

clear new

goals

for continental scale

protection

and restoration

enumerated

in its

journal,

Wild

Earth:

First, protect

all native

ecosystem types....Second,

maintain

viable populations

of all

species,...Third,

maintain

ecological

and evolutionary

processes

ourth,

design

and manage the

system

to

be

responsive

to

both short

and long-term environ-

mental

change,

and

to

maintain the

evolutionary

potential of

not

just

particular

species

but

their

various

lineages, since

genetic

diversity within

a particular species

can also

be

critical

to its

survival and health in

the

long run.

3

These principles,

though presently

widely

accepted,

represented

radical change

from the way major

land

and

river

protection groups

like the

Nature

Conservancy,

or American

Rivers,

approached

their efforts

in

the

1980s.

Most land

protection work

by these

and other

national

or inter-

national groups was

narrowly focused

on individual

endangered

species or

discrete

but

important

parcels of

land or, in

the

case

of

river protection,

narrow riparian

corridors, dam

stopping, and

protection

of

wild

and

scenic

rock-filled

wilderness canyons.

Implicit in

these principles was

an

emphasis

on keeping

or restoring

major

predator

species to

ecosystems

and

using

these

efforts

on

continental

scales never

before attempted.

3

In several

ways, including

metaphorically

in Dave Foreman's

seminal

Wild Earth

essay,

The River

Wild,

32

The

Wildlands

Project

efforts

paralleled

the

smaller scale,

yet

comprehensive, river

watershed

protection

organizations

and

projects

that started

in New

England in the 1930s

and 1940s and

spread

like wildfire

throughout

the

United

States

and Canada

in

the 1990s.

3

3

Section

two,

Restoration,

focuses on

dams,

dam removal, and

restoration

projects throughout

the

West.

It

tells in detail

one

portion

of the

Colorado River

story of the

Glen

Canyon Dam and

the forces that

led to its

construction, which

are

now

threatening

its

survival.'

Colorado

law

professor Charles

Wilkinson calls

the confluence

of people

and

ideas that

29.

See id.

ch.

3

Putting

the

Wolf

at

the

Door.

30. Id.at

62-63.

31.

Id.

at 63 65

32. Dave

Foreman,

The River Wild

WILD

EARTH,

Winter 1998-1999,

at

1-4.

33.

See generallyPeter

Lavigne, Watershed

Councils

Eastand West

Advocacy Consensus

and

Environmental

Progress 22

UCLA

J. ENvTL. L.

POL Y

301

2003-2004); Peter

M. Lavigne,

h

Movement

for

American

Ecosystem

Restoration and

Interactive

Environmental

Decisionmaking:

Quagmire Diversion

or OurLast

Best Hope? 17

TuL.

ENVTL.

L.J. 1 (2003-2004).

34.

WARD,

supranote

3

at

117.

Fall 2007]


6/12

N TUR L

RESOURCES JOURN L

led

to

the

damming

of the

West's

rivers

from

the 1930s on

to the

1970s

the

Big

Buildup.

3s

The

Big

Buildup was the

plan and

action

to

build

the

dams,

roads,

and

power plants

conceived to

allow the growth

of huge

metropolitan

areas like Phoenix,

Tucson, Salt

Lake City, Las

Vegas, and

Denver in what was,

until the

1960s,

the

sparsely

populated and highly

arid

American

West.

36

Built in large

part on

theft

from

tribes,

deceptive

advertising,

and

regional

political

clout in Congress

sufficient to continually

raid

taxpayer

pockets throughout the

country,

37

the

centerpiece project

was

the

destruction of

Glen

Canyon

by the construction

of

Glen

Canyon

Dam

and its

resulting 180 mile long reservoir,

the

artfully

named

Lake

Powell.

This

section, in

an

especially

accessible

way,

tells

the stories of the

epic

battles

between Sierra

Club

Executive

Director David

Brower and

dam

builder

Floyd Dominy,

the

science and exploration

of John Wesley Powell,

the experiments

of Dave

Wegner

and the Bureau of Reclamation,

and

how

they all meshed

with the

vision of Richard Ingebretsen

and

others to restore

Glen

Canyon

by draining

Lake Powell.

Acknowledging

the perception

of

many

that the very notion is

slightly or completely loopy,

the

chapter

titles

are humorous,

8

but

the

underlying story

and efforts are

serious and

well

told.

In the final

section of Hope s

Horizon,

Abolition,

Ward returns

to

territory he

mined in his

first

book, Canaries

on the

Rim,

9

which

tells

the

story of the

downwinders, the peoples

of

the

Southwest

who were

the

experimental canaries for the

advent

of

the nuclear

age.

Ward,

as

a co

founder

of several Utah

environmental

groups

including

the Healthy

Environment

Alliance

of Utah

(HEAL Utah),

4

an

alliance of citizens

and

organizations

working to protect

the health of

Utahans from nuclear

and

toxic waste, brings

a personal connection to his

topic.

Abolition, he notes,

4

is not a word to

be used

lightly.

This

section

begins

with

the

little

known

story of

the behind-the-

scenes

radioactive

tragedy of the

1955 John

Wayne

movie titled

The

Conqueror, from which

Ward tells

the story

of the ongoing radioactive

35. See generally

CHARLES

WILKINSON,

FIRE ON THE

PLATEAU: CONFLICr

AND ENDURANCE

INTHE

AMERICAN SOUTHWEST

(1999).

36.

In fact,

though

now

home to tens of millions

of

people comprising

the most highly

urbanized

population

in the United

States,

and

despite all

our

rural

cowboy advertising,

wishful

thinking,

dams,

and transmountain

water basin diversion

projects,

the West is still a

desert.

37

See, for example, Wilkinson's

Fireon

the

Plateau,

supra

note

35; Reisner's

Cadillac

Desert,

supra note 14; and

Patricia Nelson

Limerick's The

Legacy

of Conquest

1987),

among others.

38.

See e.g.

WILKINSON,

supra

note

35,

A

Ridiculous

Idea Whose Time

Has

Come or

White Elephants

in

the Boneyard

of Pride.

39. CHIP

WARD, CANARIES ON

THE RIM: LIVING

DOWNWIND N TH

W ST 1999).

40. HEAL

Utah, http://www.healutah.org/home

(last

visited Jan.

10,

2008).

41.

WARD,

supra note

3,

at

317

1004

[Vol.

47


7/12

BOOK

REVIEWS

waste

legacy

of

the early nuclear age.

As Ward

relates, the movie was

made

on the

sand near

St. George,

Utah, about

100

miles

downwind

of

the

Nevada

Test

Site, where

a hundred nuclear bombs were

set off in experi-

ments

to

build

the

United States'

nuclear arsenal.

4

The tests contaminated

the people and

soils downwind, and as Ward says,

The

Conqueror

would

be

easily

forgettable were

it not

for the

strange

fact that about

80 percent of the

cast

and

crew

eventually

succumbed to cancer.

By the time of

Wayne's

demise in

1979

cancer was

as common in America

as the

postwar

flood

of synthetic industrial chemicals that stained

the

average

citizen's blood

cells, as

common

as

the trace

amounts of radiation drifting through our food webs.

Even

so, an 80 percent

fatal-cancer

rate constituted

a

suspicious

anomaly,

and

the

leading

suspect was

a

monster

that

glowed

in

the

dark,

a demon so

scary even Hollywood

could

not

have

imagined

it.

4

3

The

brief

tales in Hope s Horizon

describing the efforts to deal

with

the radiation

legacy

of uranium mining,

nuclear bombing,

power

genera-

tion, and radioactive

waste disposal

in

the

Southwest end

with

a carefully

constructed

argument

that the

nuclear

industry, in all its forms, should

be

phased out and

abolished.

In the

present-day context of

a

renewed boom

in uranium exploration, mining, and processing in the

region,

Hope s

Horizon is especially

helpful in informing the ongoing

policy

debates and

decisions

of the still

un-dealt with

legacy

of wastes requiring careful

stewardship for at least

the

next

10 000

years. This

is a challenge

unpre-

cedented

in the history of humanity. As Ward states in his concluding

chapter, Abolition

and

Precaution, As a library development

consultant

for the state of Utah,

encouraged

many local governments to

make long-

range plans for

public

library service.

Five-year plans were a stretch

for

most

mayors and

commissioners,

and

ten-year plans were out of the

question. A

10 000 year

plan

would be laughable.

Timber,

Uranium,

and urder in the Southwest

The last two

books

in this

collection

also

provide hope, as well

as

a sobering look at

the continuing challenges

and

injustices in the West

regarding ongoing cultural and environmental policy toward

the West's

original

inhabitants,

who are

the

multiplicity of

indigenous

tribes that

first

peopled

and still live

throughout large areas of the continent. John W.

42

Id.

at 234

43 Id.

44

Id

at

323.

Fall 20071

1005


8/12

N TUR L RESOURCES JOURN L

Sherry's

Land

Wind and Hard Words:

Story

of

Navajo Activism

is in

part

a

murder

mystery

wrapped

in a

fascinating

history

of

the

cultural and

environmental

group

Din6 CARE

Land

Wind andHard

Words

is also short

and

succinct relative to

the

other books in

this

collection. Readers

who have

enjoyed novelist Tony

Hillerman's

Navajo mysteries

and cultural

depictions

will find Sherry's tale of Navajo professionals

and

activists Leroy

Jackson

and

Adella Begaye

uplifting, grittier, disturbing, and absorbing.

Sherry is an

engaging

anthropologists

6

well aware

of the

dangers of

his

ilk befriending

and

reporting upon

indigenous

peoples.

Now

working

for a

famous

technology company

investigating

the relationships between

people and machines, Sherry spent

the

early 1990s living and working with

Jackson

and

Begaye and was present

at

many of the

events

and meetings

described

in

the

book. In

an

unusually sensitive preface to

his

book,

47

Sherry

notes, despite his embarrassment

for

initiating the relationship

with

the

people

of Din6 CARE

as

the subjects

of his

dissertation

research, that

[t]his has been a

humbling and learning experience....Limited

writing

skills

may

be

part of the problem, but only part: all

writing,

all

representations

we create, are inevitably doomed

to

particular

limitations

and distortions.

There is

some

consolation

in

a couple

of

facts: First, this

is

nothing

new for anthropologists. The discipline has

struggled

over the

past two decades to

get beyond the

authoritative

descriptions

of this or

that

culture ....

Second, and

more

importantly,

despite

all my misgivings,

the people of

Din6 CARE

themselves

have

never stopped

encouraging

me

to

continue. They

have read

and

commented

on drafts, giving me corrections

and

feedback,

and

told me

a

number

of times,

it's

OK,

keep

going.

Din6 CARE

was

founded

out

of

outrage at the

Navajo

Tribe's

clear-

cut forest

sales in

the Chuska Mountains. Navajo

Leroy

Jackson,

a

Vietnam

veteran, former hobo and

drug

abuser, substance abuse

counselor,

and

finally

engineer and

artist

became

the leading public speaker

for the

opposition

activists

of Din6 CARE By

the summer

of

1992,

as Din6 CARE

organized Spiritual

Gatherings

4 9

in

many

areas

throughout

Navajo

lands,

Jackson became

the public

target

for

supporters

of the timber sales and

was

the

subject

of protests.

He

was even burned

in effigy for

his

efforts

to

persuade and organize

the people living in the timber sale

areas.

Along

45. JoHN W. SHERRY, LAND, WIND AND HARD

WORDS:

ASTORYOFNAVAJOACrIVISM 2002 .

46.

Interview with John Sherry in

Portland,

Or. (Nov. 10

2005 .

47 SHERRY, supr note 45,

at

vii ix.

48. Id. at ix.

49.

Id.

at

99 100.

1006

[Vol. 47


9/12

BOOK REVIEWS

with Din4 CARE co-founder

and later executive director Lori

Goodman,

Jackson

had

a

knack

for public

speaking and

also

for effective

organizing.

On October 1, 1993,

Jackson

disappeared.

On

his

way to meet his

wife after several days of meetings, he didn't

show up at

their

designated

meeting

place.

Eight days later, his decaying

body was found wrapped

from head to toe in a blanket

inside his

locked

van in

a

busy highway

parking area. No keys to the

van

were

ever found and the police

investigation

was perfunctory

at

best.

Despite national and

international

press attention and

the efforts of Dine CARE activists, no resolution to

his

death has been found.

Sherry's

tale

of

Jackson's

life

continues

with the evolution of Din6

CARE, through its

activities

to fight the

ongoing problems with uranium

wastes,

its interactions

with a

variety

of

non-Navajo

environmental

and

other organizations,

its

continuing

struggles with funding,

and how it

deals

with

the hopes and obsessions

of

other

organizations and

individuals trying

to pre-empt

their

efforts

for

their

own

needs.

One of the more

interesting

stories

in

the book is

the

development

of the stormy

relations

between

the

early iteration of Din6

CARE

and the

then

new group, Forest Guardians.

Uneasy

allies,

Sherry

reports,

they

continue

to work

together

at

times.50

Sherry's

reporting

is

a

riveting

and cautionary tale of indigenous group

interactions with environmental

organizations

and the

oft-learned

lesson

that

environmental

victories

are

never permanent.

Coyotes and

Dams

Paul VanDevelder's

Coyote

Warrior takes a different

tack.

The book

tells of the many

disasters visited

upon

the Mandan,

Hidatsa,

and

Arikara

tribes

by

the construction of

Garrison Dam and includes

a

legal and

personal

Hollywood

ending. VanDevelder's Coyote Warriors are the new

generations

of Indian leaders who, beginning in the 1980s,

started returning

to their

reservations as

highly

trained

professional

biologists, hydrologists,

atmospheric chemists, and lawyers and who began

reconnecting with

their

ancestral

traditions to find new economic

and political

solutions

to

long

standing

ailments.

oyote

Warrior

s

a

masterful,

intricate,

and

broad

history,

telling the story of the

application

of

new

tools

and

old

rights

by

the

Coyote

Warriors of the late twentieth

and early twenty-first centuries

who

work to

remedy

the

detrimental effects of legal

doctrines stretching

back to

the laws

created by

twelfth century popes

to take

possession of foreign

lands held by 'heathens

and

infidels. '

2

50. Interview

with

Paul

VanDevelder (Nov. 11, 2005 .

51 PAUL VANDEVELDER

COYOTE WARRIOR: ONE MAN,

THREE TRIBES

AND THE TRIAL

THAT

FORGED

A NATION (2004).

52

Id.

at

24.

Fall 2007]

1007


10/12

NATURAL

RESOURCES

JOURNAL

In part this

is another

personal story

of

coyote

warriors,

like

that

of

Leroy Jackson,

Adella

Begaye,

and

the

others

in Land Wind and

Hard

Words.

Here

it is the

soft spoken

Mandan

Hidatsa

tribe-member

professor

of

law at

the University

of Montana,

Raymond

Cross. Cross

is the son

of

tribal chairman

Martin

Cross,

himself

the great

grandson

of the

chiefs who

sheltered

Lewis

and

Clark

on

their

journey

to the

Pacific in the

winter

of

1804.

At the

end

of

World

War

II

Martin

Cross

fought

a

desolate

and losing

battle

against

the

federal

government

and the

Army

Corps

of

Engineers,

who

persuaded

Congress

to seize

tribal

lands to

build the

large

and nearly

useless

Garrison

Dam

on the

Missouri River

in

North Dakota.

The

Garrison

Dam was a

highly

effective

instrument

of

the

Native

American

Diaspora

of

the

post war

1950s

putting

the

fertile,

friendly,

and productive

lands

of the

three

tribes,

lands that

had

nourished

them for

thousands

of years,

under

a

six-hundred

square-mile

reservoir.

This

time

in history

was the

Termination

Era,

when

the

Indian

policy

of

the

United States

was to

break

up

native

reservations,

forcibly

terminate

tribal

rights,

and

scatter

and

assimilate

tribal

members

into

the

wider

society.

3

Led

by Utah

Senator

Arthur Watkins

and

Truman

appointee

to

the Bureau

of Indian

Affairs

Dillon Myer,

the termination

programs

were

particularly

effective

with some

tribes

more

than others.

Myer

had previously

run the

Japanese

internment

camps

during World

War

Two,

and

at the

end

of the

war was in

charge

of the relocation

of those

interned.

As

Martin

Cross's grandson

Bucky

says in the

book,

Myer

and..

.Arthur Watkins

decided

the time

had

come for

all

of

us Indians

to

get out

and

see

the world.

So Myer

launched

a program

to round

up

all the

Indians,

put us

on

trains

and

buses, and

scatter

us

in the big

cities....People

we'd

known

our

whole

lives were

put

on

trains in

Minot and

vanished

.... Years

later, in San

Francisco,

you'd

read

about

some

guy

who

jumped

off the

bridge the

day before.

Hey,

I

know

that guy.

I was

in school

with that

guy

in Elbowoods.

s

Raymond

Cross

was

living

with

his

parents

and nine

siblings

in a

dirt

floor

shack

with

no plumbing

or electricity

when the

floodwaters

rose

behind

the

dam and they

were

dispersed

to California

with

their

mother.

His

father

stayed

behind in

North Dakota

and

died

in April

1964 while

his

son,

Martin

Jr. was

visiting

from

college.

The youngest

of

the ten children,

Raymond

lived

as

a teenager

with his

elder

sister Marilyn

and her

family

in

Santa

Clara,

California.

After

graduating

from high

school,

he attended

Stanford

University

and was

profoundly

influenced

by the

emergence

of

53.

Id at 28 29.

54.

Id

at

28.

Elbowoods

was

the main community

of

the

three

tribes flooded

by the

Garrison reservoir.

The

Army Corps, blind to irony, named the reservoir

Lake

Sakakawea.

1008

[Vol. 47


11/12

BOOK REVIEWS

AIM,

the

American

Indian Movement, in

the 1960s.

5

Professor Cross says

in

the

book,

What

AIM helped

people

see for the

first time was

that our

native

cultures had

been

strip-mined

by the Euro-American,

Judeo-Christian

civilization....This was a big deal. An awful

lot of

Indians had been

baptized

Christians. But by then, the

storm of protests

and causes

made it

clear to us that

we were

dealing

with

a desperate society trapped

inside a crumbling

mythology

.... Blacks,

Indians, Chicanos- we

all had to

start

finding our own solutions because

the white people were

out

of answers.

6

Looking for his own

answers,

and

helped

by

the Nixon

administra-

tion s

call for

reversal

of Indian Termination policy,

7

Cross

entered

Yale

Law

School and

after

graduation went to

work

for the Native

American

Rights

Fund

in

1977.

VanDevelder

masterfully weaves

Cross s

legal

odyssey

over the

next ten

years that

led to

his

landmark Supreme

Court

argument

and 6-3 winning

case

in

1986 Three Affiliated Tribes

of

the Fort

Berthold

Reservation v Wold Engineering

(Wold iI), establishing the main principles

of tribal sovereignty governing

U.S. tribes today. VanDevelder s

narration

is

a

stunning

feat of

writing

and

the web he weaves is a tribute

both

to

Professor Cross s achievements

and to

the personal resilience

of Cross

and

his tribal ancestors. Anyone

interested in

the

history of tribal

relations in

North

America

and

especially

in

modem

legal

history

will

find

this book

the

equivalent or

superior

to

other

legal thrillers like

Simple

Justice, A

Civil

Action, or Common Ground.Kudos

are also due

to publisher

Little

Brown for

the

book s extensive resource

materials

including Appendix

A, Indian law:

An Evolutionary Time Line;

5 9

Appendix B Elbowoods, North Dakota: Final

Roll

Call

of

Relocation

and Dispossession-

1953;

6

Appendix

C the

complete text of the

1851 Treaty of Fort

Laramie

(Horse Creek),

6

as

well

as

an extensive

bibliography and 27

pages

of

notes.

Conclusions for

the

Twenty First

Century West

Meine,

Ward, Sherry,

and

VanDevelder, each in their own

way,

write both

to

explain the past

and to forward visions for the future of

the

West and

the larger society. As

in the

movie Chinatown,when

the character

55.

Id. at 185 86.

56 Id.

57

Id. at 186

58. 476 U.S. 877 1986).

59. VANDEVELDER supra note 51,

at 249.

60. Id. at 255.

61.

Id.

at

263.

Fall

20071

1009


12/12

N TUR L

RESOURCES

JOURN L

Jake Gittes, an

investigative reporter

played

by

Jack Nicholson,

asks the

crooked

water

and

real estate developer Noah

Cross,

62

Why

are you

doing

it? How

much better

can

you eat?

What can you

buy that

you

can't already

afford?," Cross

replies right to the

point: "The

future,

Mr. Gittes, the

future "'

These writers and

their subjects

are

blazing

a

way to a

different

kind

of future.

It

is

a future

based upon

transparency, cultural

and

environmental

integration,

and

hope.

We can

all hope

that this future

brings

a better understanding

of

multiple goals and achievements

than the

single

minded

constrictions

and tragedies

of the stories

related in these

books.

R ~V WS

Desert

Wetlands

By

Lucian

Niemeyer,

with

text by Thomas

Lowe

Fleischner.

University of New

Mexico

Press, 2005.

Pp. 148.

$19.95

cloth.

It

is not

hard to

imagine

the initial reaction that many

people might

have

upon

first encountering

the

title of this book.

Lucian

Niemeyer

certainly

seemed to anticipate

this

with the very first

sentence in

the book's

preface:

"The

term

'desert wetlands'

seems like an oxymoron."

The title

may indeed elicit

some amusement

or

confusion

at first,

especially fo r

readers

not

familiar

with the

American

Southwest and adjacent

parts

of

Mexico.

Even

a cursory

examination

of this book,

however,

will quickly

instill

in

the

reader an appreciation

for

the extent and variety

of

desert

wetlands, as well

as for

their

ecological

value and

their

sheer

beauty.

One reason

that only a cursory examination

of

the book might

achieve

this

level

of appreciation

is because

of Niemeyer's

beautiful

photography. There is

hardly a page

in the

entire book

where one's

attention is not

first

drawn to one

or more color photos depicting

desert

wetland

scenes

or the wildlife

and plants that

can be found in them.

The

bulk of the

photos are from

the Bosque

del Apache

National Wildlife

Refuge

along

the

Middle Rio Grande River

in New Mexico,

but there are

also photos

from

all four

major

deserts in the American

Southwest

and from

every other

state in

the region. Like

several other

books

by Niemeyer

a

well-known

professional photographer

Desert Wetlands could

easily be

considered

a coffee table

book,

with

its

beautiful photography on

virtually

every page and

its 9

x

12

format.

While

many

buyers of

this book

may

look

no

further than

its

photos,

it

is

my hope that

most will

also take the

time

to

read

the four

accompanying

chapters by

Niemeyer's

collaborator,

Thomas Lowe

62.

Played

by

John

Huston.

63.

CHINATOWN

(written by

Robert

Towne,

directed by

Roman

Polanski,

Paramount

Pictures

1974).

1010

[Vol. 47

09 Lavigne Connection

Documents