the planet Wyoming
Jun
On the back cover of my paperback edition of The Solace of Open Spaces, there's mention of Gretel Erlich's personal relationship with "this planet of Wyoming" she has come to call home. A lot about this planet has changed in the 20+ years since Erlich wrote The Solace of Open Spaces–unfortunately much of the change has been to the detriment of the planet.
The Bureau of Land Management is currently soliciting comments on a proposed Resource Management Plan for oil and natural gas drilling on land Erlich describes as
922,880 acres of biologically and hydro logically sensitive, knock-dead gorgeous land north of Pinedale including: all federal land between the Wind River Range, including lands on either side of the Green River, west to the Wyoming Range, and north to Hoback Junction near Jackson Hole.
Not one to sit idly by while the Feds sell-off the leasing rights to this unique landscape, Gretel and her husband Thomas Kearns are doing everything they can to generate awareness and comments about this travesty. Thus her rant below:
The other day, my husband and I drove to the Upper Green River Lakes. There had been a snowstorm the night before and later, as snow began to melt, we saw 20 elk, 14 deer, ducks on every pond, a sandhill crane on a nest, Canada geese, tundra swans, and a moose and her young in the treesWe have traveled and lived all over the world, but chose the Upper Green as a refuge, as a place of
exquisite beauty where we can walk, hike, cowboy, fish, and come to know the communities of animals and plants of which we are a part.
Now it is all threatened by a mandate from a seriously failed presidency that would take the
vitality of a place with significant biological, hydrological, and aesthetic values when there is no
real need. This is a government that has refused to face the climate crisis, or any alternative energy
plan that could so easily be implemented in this nation of can-do people with remarkable abilities and minds.
Instead, our government agencies, as instructed by the federal government would rather go to the jugular of natural beauty and biological health, destroying it for short-sighted gain when we've not taken serioulsy ANY efficiency standards for automobiles, for industry as a whole, or for buildings and residential housing.
The Upper Green, the Wyoming Range, the Hoback, Jackson Hole, and the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem of which these areas are a part, CANNOT be replaced, cannot be restored, whereas the uses for gas and oil that would be taken from this ground will only be used to incur more and more pollution and increase our vulnerability to global warming.
Why are we doing this? Wyoming has always been exploited much as a developing nation: the riches are taken and what's left behind is of no importance to the takers. What we need to see is that we are a first world nation of unsurpassable beauty, a haven and refuge for all in the world who are tired, overworked, city-bound, despairing, in need, and who hunger for what is real.
Please do not destroy this place.
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