After the Grizzly by Alagona Peter

Author:Alagona, Peter
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780520275065
Publisher: University of California Press

THE DESERT REORGANIZED

In the two decades that followed the desert tortoise’s listing, a series of complex, intertwined political processes transformed land and natural resource management in the Mojave Desert. New federal laws, management plans, conservation initiatives, interagency agreements, and scientific assessments—as well as more than a few lawsuits—redrew the region’s bureaucratic boundaries and established a new administrative geography. Some of these processes began with the goal of restoring desert tortoise populations. But the species also became entangled in debates that seemed only vaguely related to its conservation, as various groups used it to promote their visions for the future of the landscape. Like the spotted owl, the desert tortoise became more than simply a subject of conservation. It became a vehicle, a catalyst, a symbol, a diversion, a partner, an enemy, and a potential source of political power for those who could mobilize it for their cause. By 1990 all attention had shifted to Clark County, Nevada, just over the California state line in the northeastern Mojave, home to the city of Las Vegas.

In less than a century, Las Vegas had grown from a dusty outpost and railroad depot into a major American city. Most of this growth occurred over the span of a single human, or tortoise, lifetime. Yet few people now remember the landscape that preceded the contemporary metropolis, so its special qualities warrant mentioning. In Spanish, Las Vegas means “The Meadows.” Before the city appeared, the Las Vegas Valley’s desert steppe landscape supported some of the finest rangelands in the Mojave. Snowmelt from the Spring Mountains, which reach nearly twelve thousand feet in elevation, created freshwater seeps and seasonal streams, and the steep terrain surrounding the valley provided habitat for a diverse suite of plants and animals. It was a wonderful place to settle down and raise some cows. It was also home to thousands of desert tortoises.

In 1960 Nevada was still the least-populous state in the nation, with fewer than three hundred thousand residents, but population growth had already become its primary engine of development, and civic leaders had a clear vision for their economic future. To attract new businesses, the state would remove impediments to growth: taxes would stay low, corporate regulations would remain limited, and local governments would annex federal land for privatization wherever possible. Inexpensive real estate would attract development, and planning would focus more on facilitating construction than mitigating its impacts. According to one of the state’s greatest boosters, Governor Grant Sawyer, Nevada’s newfound attractiveness came down to one word: “It is the intangible that is responsible for Nevada’s charm—we call it climate.” Sawyer did not have Las Vegas’s 110°F summers, parched autumns, frigid winter nights, or gale-force springtime winds in mind when he spoke of Nevada’s “climate.” As the Los Angeles Times put it, in 1961, “Chances are . . . you’ll be able to do whatever you want to do there for quite a while.”36

By 1990 Clark County had a human population of nearly eight hundred thousand and one of the nation’s fastest-growing metropolitan areas.

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