Order 1381350: Executive Summary

California, and the Future" in The Hour of Land

In July of 2015, my family and I took a vacation to Seattle, Washington to visit a family friend. While in Seattle, we took a quick trip to Mount Rainier National Park and rode the Mount Rainier Gondola. As the gondola traveled to the next destination, I observed the breathtaking skyline and was in complete admiration of nature’s architecture. In The Hour of Land , published May 31, 2016, author Terry Tempest Williams (“Williams”), begins with a personal story of she and a friend visiting the Cesar Chavez National Monument, which leads to her bringing forth her arguments as to why it is important for people to participate in conservation and why others may choose not to participate in conservation efforts. Williams focuses on the negative effects when conservation is ignored in support of capital gain. Williams also implores the importance of human beings collaborating as a whole to better society, and overlooking cultural differences, can achieve equality and conserve the earth. Conserving the world is one of the most critical aspects of ensuring healthy and sustained life. However, there arise issues in the determination of what is ethical in the process of conserving and who to follow in conservation issues. The decision on what is moral and who to follow has raised many arguments in trying to solve the questions. This paper contains an argumentative essay concerning ethical hurdles or what needs to be done to ensure conservation achievement. While the author provides a personal account and history of the detriment that people and industrialization have affected earth, the author fails to provide any probable solutions or suggestions for the readers to follow. I plan to provide potential solutions in an effort to obtain a sustainable conservation goal.

Williams describes the transformation of a 187-acre size land from a mine-affected area into a site of Stony Brook Retreat and a hospital for tuberculosis infected people (Williams). Williams in the narration argues that among the people involved in shaping the American conservation is the poor farm workers led by Cesar Chavez. When Chavez hears of the intention to auction the land he struggles to buy it and luckily by the help of a film producer that he hires is able to make the purchase.. After purchasing it, he sells a parcel to the UFW and the rest he names Nuestra Senora Reina de La Paz. Chavez and makes the land a sanctuary and a home for keeping the farm worker’s dreams and rights alive. In honor of the Cesar Chavez efforts, president Barrack Obama designates the La Paz monument as one of America’s national monuments in 2015.

Williams also argues that the ancient knowledge in conjunction with traditional management of the land serves as both a revolution and a cure between the citizens and the conservation (Williams). For example, in a case of a proposal for a monument in America’s the southwestern region, the chairperson of Utah Dine Bikeyah says that the different tribes in the country demand to see their cultural values protected. The people in the area bordering the Canyonlands National parks would like to see their land protected through the Antiquities Act. One of their elders in an interview with Williams says, “We can still hear our ancestral songs being sung on the mesas.”

In the struggle to generate the spirit of conservation, Williams also argues in support to the ancient advocates of the protection of the wild country and the national parks. Williams says in her text that John Muir’s decisions and recommendations are both noble and worth both admiration and respect. Other historians also recognize the work of John Muir. For instance, Donald Worster says that Muir started a new American religion (Williams, 2016). The term new religion is used symbolically to signify that the act of conservation that Muir initiated has many followers and more will join. It was Muir’s vision that one could protect a mountain while on the other hand; everything else is wide open for development. It is evident from this argument from Williams that Muir is a father of conservation of the environment citing the transformation of Yosemite Valley which Williams says looked like Eden.

However, the decision on who is to decide what is ethical for environmental conservation develops some problems amongst the citizens. For example, the case of a rancher Cliven Bundy refusing to pay for grazing fee and offering death threats (Williams, 2016). Williams argues that from the ranchers’ point of view, the locking up of the federal lands poses a threat to their living style and a violation of their values as Americans. As a result of the risks offered the land management officials and National Park Service are urged to avoid being in uniforms in public for fear of being a target. The main argument of the ranchers was that they were tired of the government telling them what to do.

We have an environment where monetary and environmental objects do not always meet in the middle. Value(s) would need to be internalized and assessed by all, but this more than likely will be on a personal basis. “Our institutions and agencies are no longer working for us. It is time to reimagine the wilderness movement as a movement of direct action, time to reimagine our public lands as sanctuaries, refuges, and sacred lands. Time to rethink what is acceptable and what is not.”

Miller, Brandon and Jay Croft. “Climate Change. New IPCC Report.” October 8, 2018.