Seeking A Square Peg For A Round Hole
By: Doug Busselman, Executive Vice President
Over the past couple of days a conference was held in Sparks, Nevada, offered by the Society for Range Management. The topic of the conference involved Wild Horses and Burro management and was intended to bring together various points of view regarding ways of improving government agency policy to influence better management of Wild Horses and Burros. In addition to looking at the impact of populations that have increased beyond the carrying capacity of the lands managed by the federal agencies, the conference also sought to raise issues of Wild Horses spilling, uncontrolled over on to private lands and tribal lands of various Indian tribes.
From the standpoint of technical expertise the conference was a rich and bountiful resource filled exercise. The negative consequences were well-covered pertaining to the devastation of land and water resources, vegetative communities and wildlife populations – caused by unsustainable Wild Horse numbers, eating themselves and everything else out of house and home. Those involved in presenting information and those on the listening side were extremely well-qualified with long backgrounds of on the ground and in the trenches resource management.
The challenges facing appropriate management of Wild Horses and Burros however is not resource related. Those involved with the conference were seeking to establish stronger credibility for the need and the approach of applying reasonable and responsible management. They were seeking rational solutions. The situation though is an irrational circumstance. It isn’t about applying thoughtful resource management.
The matter is a political condition, made so by Wild Horse Advocates and elected representatives who are not interested in responsible management of the public’s natural resources. Political gain and fund-raising opportunities are fact-driven or solution-seeking processes. Misrepresenting the situation to gain political advantage and extra donations have the advantage when compared to addressing on-the-ground, real world problems.
Until reasonable people start electing responsible representatives who care about legitimate government actions which implement science-based resource management – we will continue to see the square peg of logic searching to match up against the round hole of emotional unreasonableness. Frankly, we don’t have the hammer of sufficient size to make that work.
Over the past couple of days a conference was held in Sparks, Nevada, offered by the Society for Range Management. The topic of the conference involved Wild Horses and Burro management and was intended to bring together various points of view regarding ways of improving government agency policy to influence better management of Wild Horses and Burros. In addition to looking at the impact of populations that have increased beyond the carrying capacity of the lands managed by the federal agencies, the conference also sought to raise issues of Wild Horses spilling, uncontrolled over on to private lands and tribal lands of various Indian tribes.
From the standpoint of technical expertise the conference was a rich and bountiful resource filled exercise. The negative consequences were well-covered pertaining to the devastation of land and water resources, vegetative communities and wildlife populations – caused by unsustainable Wild Horse numbers, eating themselves and everything else out of house and home. Those involved in presenting information and those on the listening side were extremely well-qualified with long backgrounds of on the ground and in the trenches resource management.
The challenges facing appropriate management of Wild Horses and Burros however is not resource related. Those involved with the conference were seeking to establish stronger credibility for the need and the approach of applying reasonable and responsible management. They were seeking rational solutions. The situation though is an irrational circumstance. It isn’t about applying thoughtful resource management.
The matter is a political condition, made so by Wild Horse Advocates and elected representatives who are not interested in responsible management of the public’s natural resources. Political gain and fund-raising opportunities are fact-driven or solution-seeking processes. Misrepresenting the situation to gain political advantage and extra donations have the advantage when compared to addressing on-the-ground, real world problems.
Until reasonable people start electing responsible representatives who care about legitimate government actions which implement science-based resource management – we will continue to see the square peg of logic searching to match up against the round hole of emotional unreasonableness. Frankly, we don’t have the hammer of sufficient size to make that work.
Posted by Doug Busselman at 11/6/2009 7:32 AM 
Categories: Public Lands
Tags: Natural Resources Wild Horse and Burro Management Public Lands
Categories: Public Lands
Tags: Natural Resources Wild Horse and Burro Management Public Lands
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