The Hammonds, Malheur National Wildlife Refuge, & the Bundy Hijacking Agenda

"When mythic histories supplant the complexities of the past, the results can be lethal. Equitable futures for Western public lands won't be achieved when ideologues swagger in, brandishing guns and taking over federal buildings."

Like Andrew McKean's New Years Wish, I would like to Stop the Silly Talk of Selling Public Land, that includes transferring the Public's land to the states, which in all likelihood would result in privatization. This multi pronged attack against our lands/resources is currently encapsulated in the recent WTF debacle taking place in Oregon and why conservationists, whether hunting or non, should care.

Since the ever sucking majority of mainstream media refuses to do their homework, simply repeating the same crappy information or has a vested interest in painting criminals as "patriots", being the information/data maven that I am, I decided to layout a number of sources to refute these irresponsible lies circulating, especially since we have Montana legislators eager and willing to lie or intentionally bury their head in the sands to achieve their special interest objectives against our public lands, such as MT Sen. Jennifer Fielder's recent obtuse blog post - Ranching is not terrorism -- Obama should pardon ranchers and end protest peacefully, "It's no wonder the feds heavy handed treatment of the Hammond Ranching Family has stirred an uprising.The federal government was way out of bounds in charging the Hammond Family with terrorism as a result of the prescribed burns they started on their own ranch to save the range. President Obama should pardon the ranchers and put an end to the Oregon protest peacefully."

This begs the question, who the hell ever stated that ranching was terrorism? This is the kind of lying special interest fearmongering that seeks to polarize people into "us vs. them" camps, where truth and facts are normally absent from the conversation, to drive their special interests.

Let's break this down into some bite sized pieces. There are three main issues here - 1. The Hammonds repeated illegal poaching and arson violations against our public lands, our wildlife and our federal public trust employees that work on our behalf to manage our public resources; 2. the ever present lie that this federal public land belongs to the state to be privatized and 3. the narcissistic, extremist, terroristic Bundy hijacking of the Hammond jailing for their own religious and subsidized benefit.

 

Hammonds 

The lie: the Hammonds are being unjustly targeted by the feds trying to steal their land as some sort of "federal overreach taking". The Truth: the Hammonds have repeatedly violated laws, lease agreements, threatened federal employees, poached our public wildlife, interfered with the public accessing their public lands, and set fire to our public lands.

Ranchers arrested at wildlife refuge - "Back in 1994, High Country News covered the arrest of the Hammonds: "According to the Fish and Wildlife Service, Dwight Hammond had repeatedly violated a special permit that allowed him to move his cows across the refuge only at specific times. In June, refuge manager Forrest Cameron notified Hammond that his right to graze cattle and grow hay on the lush waterfowl haven south of Burns was revoked. The feds also said they planned to build a fence along the refuge boundary to keep Hammond's cows out of an irrigation canal.

The events of Aug. 3 are outlined in the sworn affidavit of special agent Earl M. Kisler, who assisted in the Hammonds' arrest. On the day the fence was to be built, the crew and refuge officials arrived to find Hammond had parked his Caterpillar scraper squarely on the boundary line and disabled it, removing the battery and draining fuel lines. When a tow truck arrived to move it, Dwight Hammond showed up, leaped to the controls of the scraper and hit a lever that lowered the bucket, narrowly missing another special agent. Meanwhile, said Kisler, Steve Hammond shouted obscenities at federal officials. Neither Hammond resisted arrest."

Eastern Oregon Ranchers Convicted of Arson Resentenced to Five Years in Prison
"A jury sitting in Pendleton, Oregon found the Hammonds guilty of the arsons after a two-week trial in June 2012. The trial involved allegations that the Hammonds, owners of Hammond Ranches, Inc., ignited a series of fires on lands managed by the U.S. Bureau of Land Management (BLM), on which the Hammonds had grazing rights leased to them for their cattle operation.

The jury convicted both of the Hammonds of using fire to destroy federal property for a 2001 arson known as the Hardie-Hammond Fire, located in the Steens Mountain Cooperative Management and Protection Area. Witnesses at trial, including a relative of the Hammonds, testified the arson occurred shortly after Steven Hammond and his hunting party illegally slaughtered several deer on BLM property. Jurors were told that Steven Hammond handed out "Strike Anywhere" matches with instructions that they be lit and dropped on the ground because they were going to "light up the whole country on fire." One witness testified that he barely escaped the eight to ten foot high flames caused by the arson. The fire consumed 139 acres of public land and destroyed all evidence of the game violations. After committing the arson, Steven Hammond called the BLM office in Burns, Oregon and claimed the fire was started on Hammond property to burn off invasive species and had inadvertently burned onto public lands. Dwight and Steven Hammond told one of their relatives to keep his mouth shut and that nobody needed to know about the fire.

The jury also convicted Steven Hammond of using fire to destroy federal property regarding a 2006 arson known as the Krumbo Butte Fire located in the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge and Steen Mountain Cooperative Management and Protection Area. An August lightning storm started numerous fires and a burn ban was in effect while BLM firefighters fought those fires. Despite the ban, without permission or notification to BLM, Steven Hammond started several "back fires" in an attempt save the ranch's winter feed. The fires burned onto public land and were seen by BLM firefighters camped nearby. The firefighters took steps to ensure their safety and reported the arsons.

By law, arson on federal land carries a five-year mandatory minimum sentence. When the Hammonds were originally sentenced, they argued that the five-year mandatory minimum terms were unconstitutional and the trial court agreed and imposed sentences well below what the law required based upon the jury's verdicts. The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, however, upheld the federal law, reasoning that "given the seriousness of arson, a five-year sentence is not grossly disproportionate to the offense." The court vacated the original, unlawful sentences and ordered that the Hammonds be resentenced "in compliance with the law." In March 2015, the Supreme Court rejected the Hammonds' petitions for certiorari. Today, Chief Judge Aiken imposed five year prison terms on each of the Hammonds, with credit for time they already served.

Department of Justice Summary of Facts
"At trial, jurors heard from a hunting guide, a hunter and the hunter's father, who saw the Hammonds illegally slaughter a herd of deer on public land. At least seven deer were shot with others limping or running from the scene. Less than two hours later, the hunting guide and the hunter and his father, were forced to abandon their campsite because a fire was burning in the area where the deer were shot. The hunting guide's testimony and photographs established fires were burning hours before Steven Hammond called the BLM and said he was going to do a burn of invasive species in the area."

Warning from the Birding Community to the Terrorists in Oregon: We're Watching You
"Just a friendly warning from the birding and wildlife photography community to the Oregon terrorists. We are watching your every move, and we have been watching you for a long time. And yes absolutely you are domestic terrorists of the worst kind, and the truth about your decades of constant poaching of protected wildlife around Malheur and other wildlife refuges, national parks, national forests and BLM lands has been well-documented. For years those of us who are wildlife photographers, birdwatchers and carers of wildlife, have been documenting the activities of you poachers and criminals around many of our nation's wildlife refuges. With our powerful cameras, and ability to move unseen in the wilderness, we have found and documented your illegal hunts, your illegal traps and all sorts of illicit activities, and are constantly feeding that information to law enforcement, and we have finally got many of you poachers on the run and into jails. And I for one am a westerner sick to death of you welfare queens and cheats living off of BLM land, illegally gutting our wilderness and our wildlife. Malheur, Hart Mountain, Klamath Marsh, Yellowstone, Glacier, Yosemite etc etc, they all belong to us, we the American people, and no small group of armed thugs is going to destroy the great wildlife and national park system that our great Republican President Teddy Roosevelt and John Muir put in place over a century ago. Wildlife photographers and wildlife/bird watchers now number some 40 million people in the USA, and feed many rural western economies with our tourism dollars, and we will not stand for your sedition."

Our Public Lands, not the State's or Private

The lie: the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge land was state or private land. The Truth: this land has always been federal, with private ranchers later WILLINGLY selling their ranches to the refuge, expanding it.

Supreme Court already ruled that feds rightly own occupied refuge

"Occupiers of the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge question whether the federal government has unequivocal legal rights to own and manage that land, without regard to the wishes of local property owners and ranchers.

Improbably, the U.S. Supreme Court has ruled on exactly that question, specifically regarding the lands of the original Malheur national refuge -- twice.

Those rulings by the nation's highest court, in 1902 and in 1935, found that the federal government has an incontrovertible claim to the refuge's wetlands and lakebeds, dating back to the 1840s, when Oregon was still a territory.

'Before Oregon was admitted to statehood, the United States is shown to have acquired title which it has never in terms conveyed away,' Justice Harlan Stone wrote in 1935...

In fact, the nation's highest court ruled seven years before Roosevelt's declaration, and again 27 years after it, that the federal government had never sold or transferred any of the 82,000 acres to French or anyone else. It was, and remains, federal land."

Don't Mess with the Bull Moose News flash: Our public lands already belong to the people. And we have a he-man Republican rancher to thank for it.
"During his presidency, Roosevelt created the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge in 1908, turning unclaimed government property into one of more than 50 'bird reservations.' ...

And he accomplished all this, remember, as a serious cattleman and Republican. The story of tensions between federal land managers and disgruntled western ranchers is nothing new; it's been going on for centuries. To hear some folks tell it, the story pits a rapacious and inept Washington, D.C., bureaucracy against the common-sense wisdom of locals who have been working on (and living off) western lands for generations, and whose cultures and livelihoods are inextricably tied to its copious bounty and responsible stewardship.

In that telling, the story becomes a kind of populist romance, brimming with many beloved tropes that Americans have absorbed over the two and a half centuries we've been analyzing and celebrating our own exceptionalism. The rugged individualist standing up to the corrupt, effete machine. The soulful underdog, reluctantly but resolutely taking on the soulless establishment. The frontier spirit versus the dreaded 'Washington mind-set.'

But it's also so ridiculously reductive as to constitute a lie. And were he alive today, Teddy Roosevelt would be the first to call anti-government ranchers out on that lie. If he needed examples to illustrate and personalize his points, he could easily pull them from his own life experience. In his 1910 memoir, Hunting Trips of a Ranchman, he wrote grippingly and horrifyingly of how a combination of harsh weather, wildfires, and massive overgrazing rendered the ranchlands of the Dakota Badlands-including his own 5,000 acres-utterly worthless for raising cattle."

In Oregon, Myth Mixes With Anger

"This version of history bears little resemblance to the actual past. Before the federal agencies came to eastern Oregon, large ranching operations from California had monopolized hundreds of thousands of acres of rangeland. Irrigation developers controlled water, cattle barons controlled the grass, and settlers were essentially locked out. Tensions were high.

During the 1890s, a populist, anti-monopolist rhetoric emerged among settlers and news editors. The local newspaper deplored the fact that the great Western ranges were passing into 'the hands of a few big cattle or sheep companies,' and predicted that soon 'an aristocracy of range lords and cattle kings would rule our mountains and plains.' In 1897, Peter French, the cattle baron who controlled the largest ranching empire in America, along the Blitzen River, was murdered by an angry homesteader. Arson, violence and grinding poverty flourished."

Terroristic Bundy HijackingThe lie: The Bundys and other militia members occupying the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge are peacefully protesting and are patriots. The Truth: The Bundys militia used weapons (definition of terrorism - the use of violence and intimidation in the pursuit of political aims) to subvert legal justice actions in Nevada against our BLM Federal employees. As a result of that action not being challenged, this militia group has felt empowered, spawning the Recapture Canyon armed ATV trespass on our federal public lands and now this armed and threatened capture of the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge. These are the actions of domestic terrorists, not heros, not patriots.

 

 The Bundy Militia's Particular Brand Of Mormonism

"Ammon Bundy uses much of the same language as his father, mixing Mormon religious symbolism with a disgust of the federal government. Speaking to Harney County residents last December, Ammon Bundy explained why he became involved in the Dwight and Steven Hammond case that sparked this takeover of federal property. 'I got this urge that I needed write something,' Bundy said. 'I asked the good Lord...I need some help. And he gave me that help. The Lord is not pleased what has happened with the Hammonds.' "

The Bundy's citing their Mormon faith as the basis of their actions, has prompted a statement from the Mormon Church : "While the disagreement occurring in Oregon about the use of federal lands is not a Church matter, Church leaders strongly condemn the armed seizure of the facility and are deeply troubled by the reports that those who have seized the facility suggest that they are doing so based on scriptural principles," the statement read. "This armed occupation can in no way be justified on a scriptural basis. We are privileged to live in a nation where conflicts with government or private groups can - and should - be settled using peaceful means, according to the laws of the land."

Former BLM chief: Bundy's pursuing an agenda on public land

"People like Cliven Bundy and sons are using the ruse of public land grazing as an excuse for pursuing an agenda, which is anti-federal government, and has very little to do with grazing on public lands... One thing that offends me is the fact that they continue to say they are supporting ranchers that have permits. My experience is that over 90 percent of ranchers I've worked with in the past are good stewards that fully comply and have cooperative relationship with land managers...

I think the delay in bringing them [Cliven Bundy] to justice has empowered other extremists to pursue radical tactics and I think that's what we're seeing in Oregon. If someone doesn't think there will be any repercussions for breaking the law, they will continue to act. There have to be repercussions... I believe there will be. There are better mechanisms for pursing disagreements than picking up arms and occupying federal facilities and threatening people's lives."

Why the Hell Is an Armed Militia Occupying a Federal Building in Oregon?

" 'But these people don't own the land,' one commenter wrote on Sunday. 'It's a federal wildlife preserve and it has been since 1908. Why are ranchers from Nevada claiming a federal wildlife preserve in Oregon belongs to them? There is no world in which that even makes sense.' ...

'These men came to Harney County claiming to be part of militia groups supporting local ranchers,' said Harney County Sheriff David M. Ward in a statement Sunday. 'When in reality these men had alternative motives, to attempt to overthrow the county and federal government in hopes to spark a movement across the United States.'...

What you have at the end of the day is a bunch of very angry men, many of them belonging to a resurgent militia movement that dates back to President Obama's inauguration.

'Soon after the election, we saw the formation of dozens of militia groups throughout the country,' Daryl Johnson, a former analyst at the Department of Homeland Security, recently told Vox. 'They were down under 80 groups, we see them balloon up to about 150 groups by the end of 2008, and by 2010, we had over 300 militia groups operating in the US.' "

Oath Keepers even disputes this Bundy Hijacking, "Oath Keepers, Mike Vanderboegh (of the Three Percenters), and other groups are condemning this action by Ammon and his cohorts. Why? Because it serves no purpose that benefits the Liberty Movement. On the contrary, it harms the Movement. Ammon's group has become the aggressors, and, by doing so, loses the moral high ground."

 Oregon Standoff: Lessons From The Freeman Case, Montana Public Radio interview with John Connor, Montana's assistant attorney general at the time of Freeman standoff in 1996.

In my mind, one of the most important articles is that put out by PEER (Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility)
OREGON REFUGE STANDOFF LATEST EXTREMIST JIHAD
Federal Inaction for 19 Months on Bundy Spawns More Militia Confrontations
Washington, DC -This week's armed seize of the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge in "Oregon by self-styled 'militia' stems from the lack of a coherent response to earlier confrontations with anti-government extremists, according to Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER), pointing to a threat assessment from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security.  The failure by the federal government to take any action following the April 2014 armed stand-off with renegade rancher Cliven Bundy was seen by his supporters as a victory and encouraged his sons and other followers to stage similar clashes.

'Rather than abating conflict, the federal hands-off approach has backfired and enables the Bundy clan to franchise a "Militia McDonalds," ' stated PEER Executive Director Jeff Ruch, noting the current 'call to arms' to spread resistance against 'federal tyranny.' 'In Nevada, federal authorities have ceded a 200-square mile militarized zone on national park and range lands as a staging ground for further operations to challenge the legitimacy of public ownership.'...

'This armed takeover should be treated as a terrorist act designed to spread fear in the community,' added Ruch, pointing to the Secretary of Interior closing all nearby federal offices due to concern about employee safety; even local public schools are closed.  'Demanding public attention at the point of a gun is not the exercise of First Amendment rights but the actions of deluded wackos.' "

My concluding thoughts...  

 

if we, as conservationists, dont stand up for our public lands/waters, our fish/wildlife and access, how can we blame our public trust employees if they back down in the face of armed threats and special interest political pressure determined to chip away at our ownership? Now is the time to rise up as good owners, make our voices heard, exert our will to support our employees in managing our interests, for responsible management and for their security and protection. If we turn a blind eye, ignore the repeated offenses, capitulate to the terrorists, we have no one to blame but ourselves.

Carter Niemeyer recently shared in an email, "The takeover of public lands by the states is a REAL danger. Politicians are engineering ways to make it happen. Misinformation is always a key factor, along with apathy on our part, thinking it could never happen." Please make yourself aware of what is really going on and what is at stake, for future generations.

To co opt a favored quote, " 'Conservation' never dies a natural death. It dies because we dont know how to replenish its source. It dies of blindness and errors and betrayals. It dies of illness and wounds, it dies of weariness, of withering, of tarnishings."

Care! Fight for our conservation values, they dont take care of themselves!

Please email  U.S. Attorney General Loretta Lynch, requesting an investigation of these extremist militia actions - Title 18 of United States Code § 2384 defines "Seditious conspiracy" as conspiring "to overthrow, put down, or to destroy by force the Government of the United States, or to levy war against them, or to oppose by force the authority thereof, or by force to prevent, hinder, or delay the execution of any law of the United States, or by force to seize, take, or possess any property of the United States contrary to the authority thereof..." These Bundy traitors have directly opposed the force of the federal government with arms, delayed the execution of the law by illegally interfering with the judicial process, and occupied and possessed property of the U.S. federal government.

Statistically, people generally contact officials to complain, so also email U.S. Department of Interior Secretary, Sally Jewell, encouraging the BLM, USFWS, NPS boldness in managing our public lands and resources for the Public Trust, following through on regulations, thereby promoting the safety of her employees, our Public Trust employees. The Nevada BLM and the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge being current cases in point.


Kathryn QannaYahu
www.EMWH.org

Standing Up For Federal Public Lands Against the Far Right - Pat Connell

Recently, the Montana Republican Party held their convention June 19-21 in Billings, Montana. At the convention, one of the party planks proposed was the transfer of Federal Public Lands to the states. This was reported as being a unanimous vote. Yet after the convention a news article ran  - GOP vote on land turnover wasn’t unanimous which quoted Connell, “Whether or not recognized by the chair or yourself due to lousy acoustics, I, for one, did vote in opposition, and I believe there were a handful of other nays,” Rep. Pat Connell, R-Hamilton, a certified forester, said in an email to the State Bureau. “While I have spent a career encouraging and promoting better management of federal lands, I do not advocate the wholesale transfer of federal lands’ responsibility to the states due to the incredible liability risks to the taxpayers of Montana such action would create.”

Due to the conflicting information, I wanted to find out directly from Rep. Pat Connell of Hamilton, what his stance on transfer of Federal Public Lands to the states is. Rep. Pat Connell is running for Senate District 43. He beat Sen. Scott Boulanger in the Republican Primary. Sen. Boulanger did not win the current seat he holds, it was appointed to him by the Ravalli County Republican Central Committee.

Rep. Pat Connell replied to my inquiry with this statement, "I have argued from local to the halls of Congress for enhanced federal land management - but transfer to the state isn't the way. Demand adequate vegetative management to protect our watersheds: volume, quality and timing of water flow. Montana can expect this as a result of the Water Compact signed by the USFS and Montana ( The only one that the fed has done with any state! ). Easiest way that I can explain it is right now,  is that 330 + million taxpayers have the burden of paying for the cost of ownership and management of these lands. Montana has 1 million folks. Do the math, and the liability risks.

Likewise, the water compact with the tribe: do a risk assessment of them pursuing their claim through the Federal District Court in Missoula upwards through the 9th Court of Appeals, and the likelihood that non tribal Montanans would get a better deal is slim to none in my opinion."

As a retired forester, Connell uses a signature quote from Gifford Pinchot, a forester who served as the first Chief of the United States Forest Service, on his emails, "Conservation is the wise use of resources for the benefit and enjoyment of ALL mankind ..."

I, for one, am grateful that we have a legislator willing to take such a stand for our Federal Public Land ownership. But, Connell is getting backlash from the far right Republicans that have been orchestrating the attacks on our Public Trust (principle that our natural resources - land, water, wildlife, etc., are held in trust for the public and their future generations).

Connell objects to Ravalli County Republican Central Committee request

"A Republican state legislator from the Bitterroot Valley got into a tiff with the Ravalli County Republican Central Committee over the weekend when he refused the group’s requirement to sign the party platform in order to be reimbursed for his registration fee at the state GOP convention.

Rep. Pat Connell, who serves in House District 87 at the southern end of Ravalli County, is running as the Republican candidate for Senate District 43 this November.

He attended the Montana Republican convention in Billings June 19-21. On July 3, he and the other Republican candidates from Ravalli County received an email from Sue Pyron, secretary of the Ravalli County Republican Central Committee.

In the email, which was made public on the political blog mtcowgirl.com, Pyron said the central committee had unanimously voted on June 10 to 'fund only candidates who agree to sign and support the Republican Platform.' "

In addition, Sen. Scott Boulanger, who was defeated in the Republican Primary has labeled Connell as a RINO - Republican in name only. This is a faddish attack by far right Republicans to marginalize what some might call traditional or moderate Republicans. I was born and raised in Texas. My family are generational straight party Republicans. I campaigned for Reagan before I was old enough to vote in the 1980 elections, so I fully understand the Republican Party from the inside. But the more I got involved in politics, researching and voting on issues, I came to view myself as an Independent, in the sense that I dont vote party politics, I vote on issues, so I may have a mixture of candidates from different parties on my ballot. So Boulanger's attack on Connell, trying to discredit Connell as not being a true Republican, is low.

I may not agree with Connell on all his positions or his voting record, but there is nothing to indicate that Rep. Pat Connell is not a Republican. In an article in the Ravalli Republic, 2014 elections: Connell to challenge Boulanger for state Senate seat, the legislator effectiveness between Connell and Boulanger is addressed. “Comparing Scott’s record, who was absolutely unsuccessful in passing a single bill that he sponsored, I was successful in seven different bills as sole sponsor,” Connell said in a phone interview with the Ravalli Republic. “Including the wildland fire suppression fund that, first off, reduced waste and year-end shenanigans with any money left over in the different departments, so that money would pay for wildland fire suppression instead of expecting the taxpayers and the state legislature to pick up the tab in the legislature. I sponsored that bill, it passed with bipartisan support overwhelmingly. Scott opposed it. He called it a slush fund at a luncheon meeting. But protecting the taxpayer from having to pick up the tab of wildfire is not a slush fund.”

If you take a look at the Montana Legislative website, doing a search for Sen. Scott Boulanger you will see this page.
This shows that all the bills requested by or sponsored by Boulanger died, as the article above states, except HB 245, which Champ Edmunds sponsored.

As a legislator, representing his constituency and working with other legislators, Pat Connell has a good reputation of doing just that.

So back to the Federal Public Lands transfer issue, if you take a look at Scott Boulanger's Facebook pages, you see that he very much advocates the transfer of OUR Federal Public Lands to the states.

As a US Federal Public Land Owner, as a Montanan rich in federal public lands and as a conservation hunter that advocates for the Public Trust Doctrine, this is a no brainer. All other voting issues are the same state to state. There will always be education, health care, economic, women and children issues, etc., no matter where you live, especially in the concrete jungles of all US major cities. But an issue that most states do not have is the abundance of our wilderness, rights and access of Federal Public Lands, for all US citizens to enjoy and this is right here in our own Montana backyard, so to speak. Boulanger and others want to take that away. 

Boulanger is not content with the Republican Primary results, so he is now embarking on a write in campaign, based on his Facebook page (click image to enlarge), where he states "Real Republicans" are angry. Boulanger wants to steal your Public Trust lands and their resources to privatize them. Pat Connell is a real Republican. A real Republican that sees the value of not only our Federal Public Lands, but the Montana state economic best interests of keeping them in the Federal hands. A Real Republican that stood up for Federal Public Lands against an agenda driven plank in the party platform led by Sen. Jennifer Fielder. Not only do these Federal Public Lands contribute to our outdoor heritage, but they contributed to the $5.8 billion dollars of Tourism and Recreation income that was brought into Montana, that means Montana jobs as well. Nonresident Values of Montana’s Natural Areas report our Federal Public Lands - natural areas, are a major attraction to Montana's tourism and recreating, which includes out of state hunting.

In this election, learn who the candidates are that uphold your Public Trust lands, not special interest agendas that would rob you of your Federal Public Lands. Stand up and Vote for your Public Trust.

Kathryn QannaYahu

Public Trust Doctrine Under Attack

Blind, but now I see
Moving from Texas, my motherland, to Montana, the home of my heart, I went, and still go through culture shock. The biggest culture shock for me was public land ownership.

Montana is rich with Federal and State Public Lands, abundant fish and wildlife, which was a tremendous pleasure, especially coming from drought cycle Texas and a short drought and tumbleweed purgatory sentence in western NE. But this was not the reason for the culture shock. The culture shock was in the land ownership. Having owned or had access to private land in TX, I didnt have to worry about where to fish or to hunt. We primarily fished and hunted on grandpa's farm and ranch lands in south central Texas. I grew up with the belief that the landowners not only owned the land, but all the rights to the land and the water and the wildlife. Those deer, those quail, those pheasants and turkeys - they were mine, or in the case of grandpa's farm and ranch, his, by right as a landowner.

Not once in over 35 years had I ever heard the phrase - "Public Trust Doctrine".

In 2007 I moved to Montana, trying to get here for over a decade. I had never been to Montana before, did not know anyone from this land to rave about it. I liken it to the old pioneer bug that bit many people, instinctively driving to an unknown land. Montana is my home, so much so that since 2001 when I left Texas, I had not been back there, until this last October when my father passed away.

Upon arriving in Montana, my first culture shock came with fishing access. My husband pulled over to the side of the road, we grabbed our rods and he began to walk down the bank to the stream. I objected, telling him he was trespassing, that he could not just walk on other peoples property to go fish. He explained Montana was not like that, there was stream access. I was not convinced. Deep seeded private land rights, like cult brainwashing, were not so easily swept aside. I expected a landowner or game warden to confront us with trespassing the whole time.

Driving up to the mountains south of Bozeman and hiking was the next shock. No toll booth requiring a paid permit to enter; no private landowner permission required for the vast tracks of gorgeous public land. Again and again I was confronted with the openness and freedom of Montana - the abundance of public lands and stream access. I still have difficulty wrapping my head around these concepts at times.

In April 2012 I joined a local conservation hunter organization in Bozeman. It was like an immersion into another world. Agency acronyms were flying around needing a pocket reference guide to know who was who. More public land was brought to light - Fish, Wildlife & Parks Wilderness Management Areas (FWP's WMAs). Was there no end to Montana's abundance? Wildlife was public, the fish were public, water was public.

But with all this abundance, I also learned of the threats that jeopardized it - special interests, politics, privatization, commercialization and Texas billionaires. I already knew what the land looked like in that landscape - Texas, where about 1.9% is public land. I also heard mentioned -  the Public Trust Doctrine and with it the North American Model of Wildlife Conservation - the polar opposite to what I grew up with - the European Model of land ownership, or as some call it - the Texas Model. I began to research and immerse myself in the details of the Public Trust Doctrine. 

Like the slave trading captain John Henry Newton who converted to Anglican Christianity, later writing Amazing Grace - "Was blind, but now I see," I too saw the light. For the same reason I never went back to Texas, I don't want to see Montana turned into a Texas. So I began to zealously fight for the Public Trust in Montana and the Greater Yellowstone Area states.

Public Trust Doctrine
The Public Trust Doctrine (PTD) is viewed as foundational, a cornerstone of the North American Model of Wildlife Conservation. The 1842 U.S. Supreme Court case, which resulted in the Public Trust Doctrine began with, "Chief Justice Roger Taney, determining that the lands under navigable waters were held as a public trust, based the decision on his interpretation of the Magna Carta (A.D. 1215). The Magna Carta, in turn, drew upon the Justinian Code—Roman law as old as western civilization itself: 'By the law of nature these things are common to all mankind — the air, running water, the sea, and consequently the shore of the sea. No one, therefore, is forbidden to approach the seashore, provided that he respects habitations, monuments, and the buildings, which are not, like the sea, subject only to the law of nations.' " (The Future of Public Trust, John Organ and Shane Mahoney).

The Public Trust Doctrine was further expanded in 1896, when the Supreme Court included wildlife into the Public Trust (Geer v. Connecticut). Then in the 1970's a Harvard legal scholar, Joseph Sax, included Natural Resources into the Public Trust.

Seven years ago Organ and Mahoney wrote, "Today, however, what came to be known as the Public Trust Doctrine, and with it the North American model of wildlife conservation, are under siege. Increasing privatization of wildlife (where landowners restrict access to wildlife for personal profit), a boom in the establishment of game farms raising wildlife for sale, the animal rights movement, and other trends are continually eroding the underpinnings of the Public Trust Doctrine. These developments threaten the legal mechanisms that allow for the protection and conservation of wildlife as a public resource. To protect the Public Trust Doctrine, conservation practitioners must consciously revisit its foundations so they can better understand its benefits, as well as the risks that citizens face if wildlife is not robustly protected by public ownership and government trust."

As President Theodore Roosevelt adamantly stated, "Here is your country. Cherish these natural wonders, cherish the natural resources, cherish the history and romance as a sacred heritage, for your children and your children's children. Do not let selfish men or greedy interests skin your country of its beauty, its riches or its romance." Roosevelt helped to give birth to conservation.

“Defenders of the short-sighted men who in their greed and selfishness will, if permitted, rob our country of half its charm by their reckless extermination of all useful and beautiful wild things sometimes seek to champion them by saying that “the game belongs to the people.” So it does; and not merely to the people now alive, but to the unborn people. The “greatest good for the greatest number” applies to the number within the womb of time, compared to which those now alive form but an insignificant fraction.

Our duty to the whole, including the unborn generations, bids us to restrain an unprincipled present-day minority from wasting the heritage of these unborn generations. The movement for the conservation of wildlife and the larger movement for the conservation of all our natural resources are essentially democratic in spirit, purpose, and method.”

On the National Front
The Public Trust Federal Lands, of which you and I are all landowners, are under attack by neo carpetbaggers under the guise that "returning" these Federal Lands to the States will bring about better land management from the local level. Bovine Blossoms! This is a lie from the very foundation of the selling point. These lands NEVER BELONGED TO THE STATES, therefore there is nothing to "take back" or "return". Not to mention that Additionally, these public land thieves are not accurately representing economically what it would entail for our State governments to take over management of these Federal Public Lands. The result would be an enormous bloated state government which state taxpayers would somehow have to pay for. A major fire alone would bankrupt the State. And finally, there is the lack of public access, which on a State level is nothing like the abundance of public access we enjoy as Federal Land Owners.

Besides the current Federal Land grab movement to transfer Federal Ownership of land to the States, there is an insidious Bill which is related to this movement. While the Federal Government would retain title to the lands, the State governments would have the administrative authority for them, while leaving the Fed with the ownership bills. This bill is H.R. 1526, deceptively named The Restoring Healthy Forests For Healthy Communities Act . This bill has passed the House and is on its way to the Senate. 
 
The Montana Front 
Here in Montana, the "siege" against our Public Trust Doctrine is being intensified by special interests that seek to profit by the privatization of our Federally and State held public lands, as well as our wildlife and resources. Some of these land thieves are using our legislature to drive their agenda, using our Environmental Quality Council Interim meetings SJ15 Work Group, chaired by Sen. Jennifer Fielder. Our taxpayer dollars are being used to achieve these special interest objectives - privatization of our Federal Public Lands and resources.

The Deceiver From Within
I can the see greed of certain people, special interest groups. I don't necessarily agree with the mentality of people that would steal our heritage, our Public Trust to privately profit, personally privatize and generally piss on Public ownership. But the worse threat, in my opinion, are the public servants, who are charged with the stewardship of our Public Trust, who would seek to undermine the Public Trust Doctrine from within - the Trustees and Trust Mangers: our legislators, executors, commissioners and employees of our natural resource agencies. Public servants we should be able to trust with the management of our wildlife and public lands/waters. Servants who whisper that the Public Trust is obsolete (if you say it often enough it will become the truth?); servants who speak of throwing their lot in with private landowners - privatization. Back room deals are done, neo conservationists are brought in to supposedly represent the conservation public into making deals on the conservation Public's behalf - deals which benefit corporations and privatization. Servants who use the Public in working groups, like shields, to hide and mask their privatization agendas, instead of doing the scientifically and legally mandated environmental reviews, statewide management plans that are part of the Public Trust Doctrine and North American Model of Wildlife Conservation. 

In my opinion, of all the threats to our Public Trust, the greatest and most insidious is that from within,  those who receive a paycheck of our dollars to manage our Public Trust; instead, they serve the special interests that would seek to rob us of our greatest treasure. 

Theodore Roosevelt stated, "Our government, National and State, must be freed from the sinister influence or control of special interests. Exactly as the special interests of cotton and slavery threatened our political integrity before the Civil War, so now the great special business interests too often control and corrupt the men and methods of government for their own profit. We must drive the special interests our of politics." 

It's not just "politics" we need to free from the "sinister influence or control of special interests", we must drive these special interests out of our natural resource agency, out of our Fish, Wildlife & Parks if we are to restore our Public Trust Doctrine - protecting our resources now and for future generations. 

Kathryn QannaYahu
www.EMWH.org