Nevada has a greater percentage of land held in the public trust than any other state. With 83 percent of our land set aside for the use of citizens — and eight conservation/recreation areas and 19 wilderness areas near Southern Nevada alone — our natural inheritance gives us ample opportunity for recreation, solitude, and unique research opportunities.
But we have some holes growing in these deep pockets. Population growth and water shortages — coupled with a growing chorus of congressional leaders from around the country who want to privatize more land — are raising questions about the future of these lands. More importantly, they are forcing us to make decisions now that will determine the quality of life for future generations.
UNLV professors are exploring public lands issues from many angles. Here, some of them share their insights and opinions on the challenges that lie ahead.
HOW HAS SOUTHERN NEVADA’S GROWTH AFFECTED THE ECOLOGICAL HEALTH OF OUR MORE POPULAR PUBLIC LANDS, INCLUDING RED ROCK CANYON AND MOUNT CHARLESTON?
Brett Riddle:
Our public planners and private developers seem to have no working concept of how important it is to have a “buffer” between urban and wild lands. High-density urban development abuts directly against popular and even less popular (but perhaps more valuable for biodiversity) public lands. This creates “hard edges” that result in negative impacts.
These planners and developers are also not provided any incentive to recognize well-known concepts in conservation biology. A lot of thinking goes into understanding the importance of landscape connectivity — including core wild lands areas, buffers, and corridors between areas — but I never actually hear these concepts discussed seriously in public arenas, let alone see them implemented as one component of planning for explosive urban development. Instead, we allow “leapfrog” developments to pop up without having open public discussions that include critical input from professional conservation biologists and public lands managers.
Stan Smith:
Damage to Red Rock Canyon and other popular public lands is a result of two primary factors: wild horses/burros and offroad vehicle use. Damage by off-road vehicles is clear — they damage vegetation, destroy biological soil crusts (which hold soils in place), and help spread exotic species into more remote areas that were formerly roadless and thus free of exotic species.
Wild horses and burros, which are not a direct effect of our growth, are devastating Red Rock nonetheless. By severely overgrazing desert rangelands, they have opened up the ecosystem to invasion by red brome, an exotic grass. Dense stands of red brome then set up the ecosystem for damaging wildfires, as happened in Red Rock (and in much of Lincoln County) last spring. If this continues, much of the Joshua tree parkland that Las Vegas residents love will be lost, replaced by an exotic grass-dominated system.
SOME PEOPLE STILL CALL THE DESERT A ‘WASTELAND.’ HOW DO YOU RESPOND?
Robert Futrell:
This sentiment springs from a worldview that understands climates and landscapes such as ours as being hostile to comfortable human habitation and relatively useless and, therefore, a waste. We look for uses, no doubt. But the uses we then put it to reflect that very cultural construction of desert as wasteland.
For instance, the Mojave Desert is the site of the heaviest nuclear testing and dumping in the nation. A primary rationale for this has been (and still is) that the desert is not useful for anything else. It’s perceived to be uninhabited by other humans as well as by flora and fauna. It’s seen as just a bunch of rocks and dirt and therefore fine for contamination (and thus is rendered productive). Some have called our surrounds “national sacrifice areas” because of this.
For the indigenous Shoshone or Paiute nations, the land is sacred. In fact, the desert land is a metaphor for no less than life itself, with place names that speak of springs, animals, and valuable plants. The indigenous experience is an example I often use to talk about how others see the desert as much, much more than a wasteland.
Brett Riddle:
One thing I try to do is get people to think about our “arid lands” rather than “desert” landscapes. The word “desert” itself has negative connotations.
I find it quite easy to get people to appreciate our arid landscapes if I simply get them out there and have a captive audience away from the city. We in academia need to do much more outreach of this sort. I find also that it helps greatly to get people thinking in the context of the entire landscape mosaic in our Basin and Range and Colorado Plateau regions. I point out that one cannot stand anywhere in a desert in southwestern North America without being in close proximity to at least one and sometimes multiple mountain ranges. This full mosaic of deserts and mountains, and the shifts in climates and habitats over thousands and millions of years, has led to the development of the most biodiversity-rich landscape in North America. There are more species of mammals, for example, in the Southwest than anywhere else in the United States and Canada.
Stan Smith:
The view that deserts are wastelands is not only ignorant, but completely inexcusable. There are many people who feel that deserts are the most spectacular landscapes on earth, myself included. Why is Death Valley a national park? Because it is an exceptional, surrealistic landscape that people go out of their way to experience. Deserts are also hotspots of biodiversity. For example, Ash Meadows in Nevada has the second highest concentration of endemic biodiversity of any location on the North American continent.
Karen Harry:
Archaeological studies have shown that people have used and made a living from this landscape for thousands of years. By taking a fine-grained look at the desert and its resources, we begin to see that it actually contains a great deal of diversity, and we find that the prehistoric and early historic people who lived in this region understood that diversity and knew how to make use of it to survive in what might superficially appear to be a very harsh environment.
Andy Kirk:
The misunderstanding that deserts were wastelands has led to some ill-fated decision making about Western land use in the past century. Unfortunately, as that opinion changed, a whole new set of challenges arose from overuse of fragile Southwestern environments. Maybe we were better off when people misunderstood the subtle beauty of the desert?
Patrick Drohan:
I personally have never met someone who has said this. I worked for the federal government in Colorado for two years, for nonprofits off and on for many years, and have been a teacher for 10. I believe the “wasteland perception” statement is more myth than reality.
Tim Farnham:
I think research that looks at the reasons why people feel this way is not only fascinating but an incredibly important topic. I know that to some people, particularly to those who grew up in areas where there is more rainfall, the desert looks like an area that’s been bulldozed and left. But the desert harbors a great number of species that show remarkable strategies of adaptation.
HOW DOES UNLV’S ACCESS TO PUBLIC LANDS AFFECT YOUR RESEARCH?
Andy Kirk:
When I moved here from upstate New York, some of my colleagues wondered how I could do public history in Nevada. What they failed to recognize is that public history is greatly facilitated by the land management agencies. With Nevada’s huge federal presence, there are remarkable opportunities for public history research in the region. Our students — a new generation of public historians — are playing an active role in helping federal agencies deal with the management of the public lands and in ensuring that cultural resources are carefully researched and preserved in the region.
Stan Smith:
UNLV is the only research university located within the boundaries of the Mojave Desert, one of the four major deserts of the North American continent. California universities have historically been the leaders of research conducted in the Mojave, but UNLV has emerged as the leader in the past decade or so. Thanks to having much of the land surrounding Las Vegas in public hands, the research opportunities are infinite, not only from an access viewpoint, but also because land management agencies need good information in order to manage their lands properly. They need information on geology, soils, ecology, biodiversity, and archaeology. Having public lands nearby also is a great benefit for our educational programs, as we have many opportunities to take students into the field so that they can experience natural landscapes in person.
Karen Harry:
Perhaps because of the view that deserts are nothing but empty wastelands, relatively little archaeological research has been conducted in Southern Nevada. At the same time, the archaeological sites on public lands are protected from the destruction that results from land development. As an archaeologist, I find myself living next to the ideal archaeological laboratory, one where intact archaeological landscapes still exist and significant archaeological questions remain to be investigated.
Robert Futrell:
I’ve long been fascinated with the immense speed of growth in the Las Vegas Valley and what this meant for resources such as water and land. It was easy to see, when I arrived in 1999, that the Summerlin development was going to abut the Red Rock area and that proximity would lead to other attempts to put houses, etc., in the midst of pristine, unique areas such as Red Rock and the Calico Basin. We have seen arguments for limiting development such as the “ring around the valley” proposal.
These are classic cases of trying to find a balance between what urban sociologists call the use value and the exchange value of an area. The use value refers to the aspects such as the aesthetic appeal of a landscape, feelings of identification with a landscape, a clean and secure environment. Exchange value refers to ways that the land can be used for money. So maintaining open land for a park or natural habitat versus using that land for a housing development is an example. These are issues that I often explore with students in my classes.
WHAT ARE THE GREATEST CHALLENGES FACING NEVADA’S PUBLIC LANDS?
Patrick Drohan:
If you are an advocate for wilderness then urban expansion is an issue. If you are an advocate for mining, it might be the increased regulation of federal lands or urban expansion. There is a lot of open space out there though. Las Vegas’ footprint really is not that big if you have driven around the state. But if the city drills wells in the central part of the state, the potential loss of water tables and rare species could be a pretty serious issue.
Brett Riddle:
I think at the core is a profound naivete about our Mojave and Great Basin landscapes and about the major sources of their fragility in the face of disturbance. Because people generally don’t understand the basic ecology and evolutionary history of native plants and animals on these lands, it is far too easy for politicians with either explicit or hidden agendas to make their cases for policies or projects that can have irreversible negative impacts on biological integrity. Indeed, we are seeing an accelerating attack on the very existence of public lands — both in the obvious ongoing conversion of public lands into housing developments and strip malls, and in the far more insidious calls for a future conversion of the majority of Nevada’s public lands into private holdings.
Stan Smith:
Invasive species is probably number one because of their effect on increasing fires and thus destroying our natural desert communities. Second is off-road vehicle use and abuse. Third is the push by the public to accelerate transfer of public lands into private ownership, which could dramatically decrease recreational opportunities for the public. And fourth is water procurement (increased pumping and delivery of water to urbanizing areas), which will have negative effects on natural springs and riparian systems, around which much of our biodiversity is congregated.
Andy Kirk:
Millions of people from around the world are starting to recognize what many Nevadans have known for a long time: Nevada has amazing public spaces for all kinds of recreation that form the cornerstone of our quality of life. Selling off public lands to fuel unchecked development makes no sense and could impact quality of life if not carefully planned.
Robert Futrell:
While urban and rural population centers remain widely distributed despite a doubling of the state’s population in the last 15 years, the exuberant pace of urban development in the Las Vegas and Reno-Tahoe areas has raised the awareness of resource issues associated with urban sprawl.
HOW IMPORTANT ARE OUR PUBLIC LANDS TO QUALITY OF LIFE IN SOUTHERN NEVADA?
Stan Smith:
This is the classic “don’t know what you had ’till it’s gone” story. Many people do not appreciate public lands, advocating transfer to private hands, even though they use those public lands and take them for granted. Then, when that happens and they no longer have access to the landscape, they complain. People who have access to public lands lead higher quality lives by having a variety of recreational opportunities that are not controlled by the for-profit private sector, and they invariably become more informed citizens because they have a better understanding of deserts, wildlife, riparian zones, etc. Anyone who has ever lived in the Midwest or East knows that public land is an invaluable asset.
Tim Farnham:
How we treat our public lands is a great reflection on not only the quality of life that we want to have today, but also on the kind that we’d like to pass on to future generations.
Brett Riddle:
In my opinion, the quality of life in Southern Nevada is completely dependent on our public lands. We need to be much more aggressive and creative about teaching Southern Nevadans — so many being recent transplants from very different sorts of landscapes — about the biological uniqueness, spiritual importance, and especially the extreme fragility of our public arid landscapes. In fact, I wonder what the reactions of most people with long histories in Nevada would be were they to travel to west Texas (another expansive arid landscape) and realize that access to most of the land is restricted because so much of it is private.
Karen Harry:
As more and more people live increasingly urban lifestyles, public lands are the last refuge for our natural environment and archaeological resources. Protection of these resources is essential for the quality of life of future generations.
Patrick Drohan:
Some associate their life with that of wildlife or solitude in open spaces. Others do it with a four-wheeler and a .38 special. I am not one to judge what someone should enjoy. That’s the beauty of public lands and the constitution.
Robert Futrell:
The future of our public lands will, in part, determine our social, ecological, and even psychological well-being. We need to better identify quality-of-life concerns with our connection to and respect for the natural environment that surrounds us. This means developing an appreciation for the desert and the myriad forms of life that inhabit it. It’s a step toward bringing that appreciation back to our urban life and thinking more ecologicially, more holisitically, about how we use resources, how we can mesh human living more closely with the requirements of our wider environment.
