I'm a new presence here, and I fear the quick reprisals of many of you - there's a boisterous lot here, and I like you - but maybe I can share my two bits anyway. Many years ago my wife and I inhereted an un-improved plot of land out in the mountains about 50 miles northwest of Price. It was a raw place, bearing only a few scars from what appeared to be a brief attempt at homesteading there many years before us. Not too far down the hill, however, a family had been making a pretty good go at ranching. I didn't feel like it was my place to say anything, but they seemed to be pretty aggressive with the land, and I feared they may be misusing it by over-extending it. Anyway, it had always been my sense that a man should handle his land as he wished, so I never said anything about it. But, soon cheat grass started running up over the hill and onto my property - upsetting the subtle balance between things as I had come to understand them - out-competing other plants.
Anyway, through this whole experience I actually came to understand the follies of thinking about land as privately owned. What each man does affects others. What my neighbors' cows did, affected the system of life I was struggling to know. And life really is complex. I hope there are people who can be more fully dedicated to understanding its nuances than I could be, and to let us know about the good practices they discover.
Many years later, i looked up what these folks seemed to think about people like my neighbors, and it appears that it has long been known that his actions were deleterious. And it appears that most folks still don't know this. What this whole Nevada fiasco teaches me, is that we all have no good way of spreading the news.
