Governor Janet Napolitano
Executive Tower
Apache County, AZ
1700 West Washington
Phoenix 85007
March 28, 2003
Dear Governor Napolitano,
I know I am speaking for many thousands of down-to-earth Arizonans when I appeal to you to consider and have your staff research a few issues that I have not read or heard of you addressing I am speaking to you as a multi-faceted minority. I am a non-Indian minority in Apache County. I am a minority occupant of the land in Apache County, where only 14 percent of it is privately held and shrinking. I am a minority small business employee in Apache County, where two-thirds of all employees work for some level of government. In a different sense I am one of maybe four million Arizonans who are expected to occupy, earn a living and pay taxes on a minority 13 percent of the land. 87 percent of Arizona is controlled by a few hundred thousand people, those being Indian tribes and state, local and federal officials.
Gila County, for example, has only three percent non-government land. And that tiny tax base where almost all production has been eliminated is expected to support a population and economy based on consumption.
Yet the concerns that seem to be close to your heart depend on ever more extraction from that contracting minority tax and production base in our state. I appreciate your concerns for the working poor. But in your "impassioned" pleas to not cut social programs you fail to connect the dots between sustainable economic health and a miniscule 13 percent of the state¹s land available for production versus consumption.
Public jobs, tourism, retirement, golf, development, high tech, casinos, etc. tremendous amount of natural resources that come only from the land. A truly sustainable economy can only be maintained longterm by intelligent balance between production, manufacturing and consumption. Arizona no longer has that balance. In fact, the entire U.S. economy is unbalanced.
Every civilization on earth has eventually failed because its urban majority forgot that it was sustained by resource production. You would be a wise (and unique) leader if you used your bully pulpit to remind your constituents that all the conveniences and necessities of modern life are provided originally by farms, ranches, logging and mines, and that it is much better for the environment if as many as possible of those resources come from near rather than far.
I hope that the next time you tour the White Mountains you will take the time to visit hardworking small business owners who are struggling to survive under government-imposed burdens that raid the fruits of their labor to distribute to the nonproductive. I hope you will visit just a few of the thousands of 'poor' unemployed and underemployed people who would not be poor if they were allowed to thin and make use of the forests which threaten them. Ask them questions about their lives and give them hope for a future based on useful work, not taxpayer-funded "programs." Governor, tell me if you honestly believe that it is possible for our state to prosper if livelihoods are banned percent of the land.
You were reported as saying you "loved" this part of Arizona. If you do, please open your eyes and see that it's not "programs" and giving away money from stressed taxpayers that will return rural Arizona to prosperity, it is well-paid jobs in the private sector. Jobs at the power plants. Jobs in the overgrown forests, and the mills and manufacturing enterprises that will establish if they are guaranteed a supply of wood.
I and so many other practical rural people envy the White Mountain Apaches who are wisely using their resources. I wish we were like them and all working together as equals to create jobs and maintain healthy forests for the benefit of ALL our people.
Which brings me to the other very important issue I would like you and your staff to study in order to use your influence wisely.
Governor, you could be an example to the rest of the nation and an influence in restoring much of our range and forest land educate yourself on a simple environmental fact that is unknown or ignored by most environmental groups and land managers. By not addressing this one environmental fact, you and many others are guaranteeing that overgrazed lands and overgrown forests will NEVER recover under the current popular siren cry of 'preservation' by eternal rest.
Learn the terms 'brittle environment' and Ononbrittle environment,¹ and the difference in how they function. Ample information is available on the Internet. Try http://www.holisticmanagement.org or
Organics, or compost is built by constant dampness and billions of tiny microorganisms that work year around to create fertile soil. In Eastern or nonbrittle environments, damaged land will indeed heal itself through rest.
In most of Arizona and much of the West, we have a brittle environment stretches of no moisture. Those dry periods mean no microorganisms working to create healthy soil. Eastern soils have 14 percent organic content compared to our 3 or 4 percent. Much of our soil has no ability to heal itself without help. Whether you realize it or not, the abundant native grasses and sunny open forests of pre-settlement times were created with the help of millions of hoofed animals to break the crust of the soil and provide organics. In early forests, clean, swift fires and the movement of animals prevented the excessive growth of trees and brush. By not allowing the trees that sprouted during rainy seasons to be thinned, our forests have been condemned to overgrowth that cannot be sustained in health during the many dry years when those vital microorganisms are nonexistent.
Overgrazed land is a fact, but the term is misunderstood and misrepresented. Overgrazing is a matter of time rather than numbers.
You have the power to test what is needed to restore land in our brittle environment. Create small side by side test plots on damaged state land.
Leave one of them to rest. Scatter straw in the other one and fill it full of cattle for a few hours to trample and fertilize the soil, then have the cattle removed. When a little rain comes, grass will likely grow much thicker than on the rested plot. After the grass is allowed to grow, bring the cattle back for a few hours to mow and fertilize again. The key is to not let them stay long enough to continually bite off the same plants until their roots die. That is what 'overgrazing' is.
Then watch which plot is the healthiest after a few years The Internet sites and Savory's book will direct you to many real life examples of the advantages of proper timed grazing over longterm rest in our quite sterile brittle environment. They will also direct you to many examples of the tragic results of longterm rest in a brittle environment. I plead with you to open your mind to a concept that is new to our modern population, but which is nature's way of differentiating between earth's many unique environments for appropriately in order to sustain and ensure a healthy and prosperous future for humans and all other creatures.
This letter will be reprinted in the Snowflake/Taylor Pioneer newspaper.