Bruce Babbitt is a former governor of Arizona who served as secretary of the Interior from 1993 to 2001 under President Bill Clinton. Since, Babbitt has become a vocal proponent of protecting significant landscapes in the West and is a board member of Conservation Lands Foundation. On Tuesday, he sat down with The Durango Herald.
Q: Welcome back to Durango. When was the last time you were in town?
A: I’m in and out of here once or twice a year. I’ve usually done it quietly. My real introduction to Durango was about 15 years ago when this idea began circulating for a national monument at the Canyons of the Ancients. I came out here a number of times to get acquainted and work out that idea.
Q: Is that where the idea for National Conservation Lands came from?
A: A vision gradually emerged that what this is really is about is an archaeological landscape. It wasn’t just about four or five ruins, it was about several thousand acres of land that had been lived upon for centuries. The land speaks to you how they lived, you see the residue of all this on the landscape. I went back to Washington, talked to Clinton and said this is the beginning of a totally new idea in protected areas.
Q: In 2013, you were critical of President Barack Obama’s conservation work. Has that changed in recent years as he finishes out his final term?
A: It has changed enormously. The president, to his credit, has awakened to Western land conservation. He is doing an excellent job. The area we’re concerned about, national monuments, protecting (Bureau of Land Management) land, he’s issued a series of remarkable proclamations all across the West.
Q: From your experience with past presidents, what do you think changed?
A: He has awakened. When a president is newly elected, they don’t campaign on these issues. They campaign on health care and foreign policy. There is a process of discovering these other issues in the course of a presidential term. Clinton was the same way. In that last term, a lot happened. I think that’s sort of a typical kind of route. Some of it surely is a president thinking about their legacy.
Q: What are your thoughts on Obama’s new greenhouse gas emission regulations, the Clean Power Plan?
A: It is the most important step forward. It is a really important step to deal with global warming.
Q: So you are on the record for believing in global warming? Do I have that correct?
A: Well, I don’t want to go too far in this interview.
Q: Do you think the current presidential debates give enough attention to the issue of land conservation?
A: No. It’s not being talked about enough. President Obama has begun a national discussion about climate change. I think it will show up in the national campaign. It’s such an overwhelming apocalyptic threat to our entire national future. I think it will be the debate.
Q: You’ve taken a hard stance on public resistance to federal management, such as the Clive Bundy standoff. Where do you think that resentment for the federal government in the West comes from?
A: There has always been in the West a certain kind of resentment of the federal government. It’s always been there. I come from a five-generation ranching family. When Teddy Roosevelt came to Arizona and said he was going to make a national monument around the Grand Canyon where my family ranched, my grandfather led the opposition.
And now, a few generations later, my relatives are all saying, “We were out there with Teddy when all these great things happened.” There’s just a kind of independence about Westerns on the land. We don’t want anybody from Washington here.
But it’s changing. Colorado has changed a great deal. There is real support for conservation. I was part of a couple monument proposals in Colorado, and they all had tremendous support. But Utah is still kind of like my family was in Arizona.
Q: In trying to preserve lands, how do you bridge that gap?
A: Start a discussion at the local level. Get everyone in. Talk, communicate, listen and try to isolate what the issues are. You have to get away from ideology and to a discussion out on the ground.
Q: What, in your opinion, are the major issues facing the West?
A: One is working with the BLM as an institution for conservation. The BLM is the biggest land agency of them all, and never had a strong conservation program.
Only in the last generation we have begun to open our eyes to the reality of the arid landscapes of the west, which are mostly BLM. We have finally begun to awaken to the importance of it, and that has to be worked on because government agencies respond to the people. That’s the reason local engagement is so important.
Q: What else are you up to these days, other than working with the CLF?
A: My day job is in South America, where I am at the center of virtual network, which is envisioning the future of the Amazon basin.
jromeo@durangoherald.com
