Last Chance to Save the Red Desert?

by Mac Blewer

The Shoshone called it "the place where God ran out of mountains." Cowboys referred to it as the "wild heart of the West." And no wonder. Southwestern Wyoming's Red Desert is the largest unprotected, undeveloped, high-elevation desert left in the U.S. Encompassing approximately 600,000 acres, the Jack Morrow Hills Study Area of the Red Desert boasts the largest desert elk herd in North America, the largest migratory game herd in the lower 48 (approximately 50,000 pronghorn antelope), the second largest active sand dune system in the world, seven Wilderness Study Areas and historic sites such as the California, Oregon and Mormon Trails.

The Jack Morrow Hills area also contains large deposits of natural gas, oil and minerals, which industry is eager to exploit. The Bureau of Land Management (BLM), charged with charting the area's future, is caught in the middle of a fierce contest between industry proposals to drill and mine the Red Desert and conservationists' determination to safeguard its natural and historic treasures.

A Century of Protection Efforts

Few citizens have been more directly involved with Red Desert protection campaigns over the years than WOC founder Tom Bell.

"In its draft management plan, the BLM has simply failed to look at the rich history of efforts to protect the Red Desert," Tom says.

Beginning in 1898 with a citizens' proposal to designate the area as a Winter Game Preserve, there have been numerous attempts to declare the Red Desert a National Monument, a National Park, a National Natural Landscape, a Wild Horse Refuge and a North American Antelope Range.

Tom recalls working with former Secretary of the Interior Stewart Udall in 1967 to designate the Red Desert an Antelope Range.

"I remember crawling around on Secretary Udall's floor pointing to locations on a map as the Secretary walked around me," Tom says with a laugh. "At the time, illegal fencing and overgrazing were the main problems out there. We thought that Antelope Range designation would be less controversial than a National Park designation."

Several months later, Wyoming's U.S. Senator Gale McGee called Tom to deliver the bad news: the proposal wasn't "politically feasible." Opposition from ranchers had effectively scuttled the plan. "It was heartbreaking," Tom recalls, "but I just had to go on to other battles."

National Monument status for the Red Desert wasn't possible either. A 1950 amendment to the National Antiquities Act barred the creation or expansion of National Monuments in Wyoming without Congressional approval.

"That was an awful thing, not having Monument designation as an option," Udall told me in a recent conversation. "If it had been anywhere but Wyoming, the Red Desert would have been made a National Park or a National Monument by now. Interior Secretary Babbitt should do what he can to protect the area while the timing is right."

A New Citizens' Campaign

A coalition of conservation groups has recently asked Babbitt to do just that, presenting the "Citizens' Red Desert Protection Alternative" to the BLM. The alternative, which the groups hope will be incorporated into the agency's final management plan, prohibits further oil and gas leasing and development in the Red Desert while allowing for a number of other less destructive uses, including sustainable grazing, hunting and responsible ORV use. (See accompanying article.)

Delvis Davis, a motorcyclist and woodworker from Atlantic City, who was a fisherman in Alaska for more than a decade, rides the Red Desert because it reminds him of the ocean's "vast distance, solitude and ultimate freedom." The Red Desert gives him the same feeling: "of being a small human being in a great big world. It puts me in my place."

While he supports efforts to protect the Red Desert, Davis is skeptical about the outcome.

"We don't need to mess it up anymore than we already have. No more roads, no more wells," he says. "It would be ideal for it to stay the way it is, but there's money involved. I hope that it can all be worked out."

Not everyone is happy with the Citizens' Protection Alternative. Wes Martel, a member of the Eastern Shoshone Tribal Business Council, believes that conservationists are being too timid.

"The Citizens' Protection Alternative is a good start but it doesn't go far enough," Martel says. "The Red Desert is one of the most unique areas in the world, but, unfortunately, all of the activities permitted under the BLM's draft management plan will lead to some degradation in the long run. I firmly believe that a protected Red Desert with abundant wildlife, cleaner air and cleaner water will provide more for all of us than the short-term profits generated from drilling, mining and grazing."

Others feel the BLM's draft management plan is too restrictive. Some ranchers fear that the agency's final plan will close the area to grazing, while a number of ORV users believe that President Clinton's Roadless Initiative will restrict their access to the Red Desert.

The BLM is expected to release its final management plan in December. Time will tell if Udall's and Bell's shared vision for the Red Desert is finally "politically feasible" enough to become a reality.