Nancy Langston
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Malheur Conflicts 
 

In 2003, my environmental history of Malheur National Wildlife Refuge was published, titled Where Land and Water Meet: A Western Landscape Transformed (University of Washington Press, 2003). Where Land and Water Meet explores conflicts between the visions of ranchers, homesteaders, irrigationists, wildlife managers, and modern environmentalists, allowing us to understand how their histories help set the stage for current conflicts.

In this remote watershed, ranchers, irrigation speculators, farmers, and wildlife biologists competed for control of the uncertain boundaries between water and land. All the groups that have lived and worked in the Malheur basin have changed the connections between water and land, and all of these changes have led to unintended consequences.  But the moral of this story is not that everything people has done has degraded the ecosystem.  My goal throughout this book is to tell the story of one small place that, for all its remoteness, has myriad ecological and political connections to much larger places.  The history of this landscape reveals the many ways a landscape can become impoverished.  Yet I also show that people can and have used that history to improve their relationships with the land.

Surprisingly, perhaps, there are lots of success stories in this book--stories that suggest that, while we certainly make plenty of mistakes, we can also build on them to improve management, if we create a structure for adaptive management that allows for new stories to find a voice in the process. These efforts have only strengthened in recent years, and these are the stories we should be telling and celebrating. You can learn more at High Desert Partnership and the Harney Basin Wetlands Initiative.  

The 2013 Comprehensive Conservation plan for the Malheur Refuge is a landmark example of the good things that happen when tribes, ranchers, conservation groups, and agency staff collaborate.

You can listen to an interview with Oregon Public Radio or watch a clip on the Daily Show to learn a bit more about the ways this history influences the current conflicts. 
 I just finished your wonderful book, Where Land and Water Meet.  I found it mesmerizing -- the writing just wonderful, the thinking so clear, the stories close to my heart and work experience. ...  I particularly loved how you brought the reader, through the details of a particular cultural-environmental history, to an understanding of American pragmatism and its relationship to the underpinnings of our democracy.  Wow!  I felt as if I had taken a fine university course just sitting in my chair by the fire.

I hope that this book, with its cogent argument for adaptive management, is required reading in university curricula for those entering the natural resource fields. --Heidi Hopkins, former policy director of the Mono Lake Committee
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"Though trained in ecology, Langston is also a skilled historian and graceful writer. Environmental historians pride themselves on their ability to synthesize scientific and historical knowledge. Once again, Langston demonstrates that she does this better than almost anyone in the field." Robert Wilson, Review of Where Land and Water Meet


Recent Articles on Malheur
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The history of Malheur informs my January 6, 2016 op-ed piece in the New York Times on the far-right militia takeover
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28 JAN 2016: OPINION Nancy Langston
Yale environment360
Beyond the Oregon Protests: The Search for Common Ground

​Thrust into the spotlight by a group of anti-government militants as a place of confrontation, the Malheur wildlife refuge is actually a highly successful example of a new collaboration in the West between local residents and the federal government.by nancy langston

The standoff with militant extremists at an Oregon wildlife refuge, which erupted into violence and arrests this week, stands in stark contrast to the new sense of collaboration between local residents and public land managers in the West. The militants claimed that the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge symbolized federal tyranny over public lands. But for many locals the refuge exemplified just the opposite: a successful community-based, collaborative partnership with the government. Not one local rancher had heeded the armed militants’ call to join their protest and rip up their federal grazing leases.

High Country News Feb. 2, 2016 Writers on the Range
​Nancy Langston
The Surprising History of the Malheur Wildlife Refuge

National wildlife refuges such as the one at Malheur near Burns, Oregon, have importance far beyond the current furor over who manages our public lands. Such refuges are becoming increasingly critical habitat for migratory birds because 95 percent of the wetlands along the Pacific Flyway have already been lost to development.
In some years, 25 million birds visit Malheur, and if the refuge were drained and converted to intensive cattle grazing – which is something the "occupiers" threatened to do – entire populations of ducks, sandhill cranes, and shorebirds would suffer. With their long-distance flights and distinctive songs, the migratory birds visiting Malheur's wetlands now help to tie the continent together.....



"Where Land and Water Meet is a sophisticated yet accessible analysis of the intersection of nature and culture. More importantly, however, it moves beyond simple criticisms of the problems inherent in wildlife and natural resource management and advances a nuanced program for those invested in land management, outdoor recreation, farming, ranching, and the environment." Ryan Carey, Department of History University of Texas-Austin, H-Environment
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  • Home
    • BIO >
      • Contact
  • Climate Ghosts
  • Art
    • Tipping Points
    • Feather by Feather
    • Pet Portraits
  • Reindeer on the Move
  • Earlier Books
    • Lake Superior
    • Malheur
    • Toxic Bodies
    • Forest Dreams, Forest Nightmares
  • Essays