How The Bundy Standoff Could Screw Over Ranchers
Think Progress
BY ALEX ZIELINSKI & ALAN PYKE JAN 11, 2016 9:31 AM
http://thinkprogress.org/justice/2016/01/11/3737719/rancher-history-oregon/
“The dry prairies of Southeast Oregon have been the backdrop for land disputes for centuries — long before armed men decided to set up shop in Malheur National Wildlife Refuge, demanding land sovereignty and snacks.
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But the dramatic move, which claims to protect ranchers’ livelihoods, actually threatens the fragile ecosystem of a community that has been working to carefully balance the competing interests in the land. And the people of Harney County have grown weary of the fighting.
“Let’s just knock this crap off and go back to being friends and neighbors,” resident Jesse Svejcar told a crowded room of locals last Wednesday night at a meeting in nearby Burns, Oregon, where residents vented frustrations about the standoff.”
Local residents are tired of the ongoing game of tug-of-war over the land now referred to as the Harney Basin. This latest dispute has rekindled the tensions over land use that have marked the region ever since cattle barons first settled on Paiute Indian soil in the mid-1800s.
Just a few years ago, however, stakeholders including ranchers, environmentalists, and federal agents unveiled an agreed-upon conservation plan for the wildlife refuge sitting in the heart of the basin. It had taken three years to negotiate, but the result — which took into consideration ranchers’ livelihoods, ecological concerns, and local economic sustainability — became a beacon of hope in the region, as well as in other rural communities wrought with similar conflict.
Now, Ammon Bundy’s headline-grabbing occupation is imperiling that accord.”
This is a long good article. I have spent too much time trying to figure out how to properly summarize it or to select balanced snippets. I know that most people don't bother to read most articles or links. If you choose to read this article you will know more than you did ten or fifteen minutes ago.