While many in the West disagree with the decision to stage an armed occupation, complaints about government mismanagement of land enjoys widespread support in the rural West.
Duane Ehmer rides his horse Hellboy at the occupied Malheur National Wildlife Refuge on Jan. 7.
Rob Kerr / AFP / Getty Images
Demar Dahl climbed onto a huge pile of rock and dirt lying in the middle of the road and looked out. Below him, hundreds of people stood at the ready, sweating under the July 4 sun, their heels digging into the dirt on the remote Nevada road.
Then over a loudspeaker, someone called out, "One, two, three, pull!"
The hundreds yelled back. As Dahl watched, the crowd heaved against ropes and chains they had tied to a massive boulder until it slid out of the way, carving a deep rut in the pale, dusty soil.
Dozens more people — men in brown cowboy hats, teens in denim overalls, moms in white high-tops — then rushed in, slicing away with shovels at the dirt left behind in the road. "One, two, three, pull!" the loudspeaker crackled again, and the whole action repeated, yanking another boulder out of the way. And it continued all day until finally the road was cleared.
Dahl was one of the organizers on that hot day in 2000 and said thousands came to join the Jarbidge Shovel Brigade for one reason: They were fed up with the federal government.
The boulders and dirt had been placed in the road by the U.S. Forest Service, which had developed a plan that included closing several roads in rural northeastern Nevada. Residents tried to get the Forest Service to reconsider, Dahl said, but without luck.
"When it all finished the Forest Service just thumbed their nose," he told BuzzFeed News. It was the last straw, and months later the "Shovel Rebellion" was born.
Nearly 16 years later, the road remains open and the so-called rebellion has simmered down, but the incident illustrates an important but oft-overlooked matter: The West has a long history of tension, and battles, between the federal government and locals who say their lifestyle is under assault. The Shovel Brigade, and the current armed standoff in Oregon, are both part of that story, but they're not the first chapters and they almost certainly won't be the last.
Supporters and members of the Jarbidge Shovel Brigade move "Liberty Rock," opening the road to the Jarbidge Wilderness in northern Elko County, Nevada.
AP
Martin Nie, a professor of natural resource policy at the University of Montana, told BuzzFeed News that over the years there have been "flare-ups," and the West is characterized by "enduring tensions" over land use.
Those tensions go way back. As the U.S. expanded west during the 19th century, the federal government acquired vast stretches of land. The idea was that the land would be distributed to Americans, but by the late 1800s — Yellowstone was set aside as a national park in 1872, for example — views began to shift and conservation grew as a priority.
from BuzzFeed - USNews http://ift.tt/1U2BCs2
No comments:
Post a Comment