a conversation

Moab’s Jim Stiles: Calling Them As He Sees Them

By Christian Probasco, 4-10-07

Edward Abbey’s polemic Desert Solitaire had such a powerful effect on Jim Stiles that he moved to Moab to be closer to the redrock weirdness of southern Utah which has since come to be known as “Abbey’s Country” and took up a job as a seasonal park ranger in Arches National Park, just as Edward Abbey had.  And then he quit that position—too much emphasis on providing access and not enough on leaving “the scenery and the natural and historic objects and the wildlife therein…unimpaired for the enjoyment of future generations,” as the Park Service’s organic act would have it—and started his own alternative newspaper, the Canyon Country Zephyr.  The first issue came out on March 14th, 1989, the day Edward Abbey died.

Stiles has since carried on the spirit of his hero and mentor.  But that spirit seems to have drawn him away from certain aspects of the current environmental movement, i.e. the overemphasis on converting the rural west into an amenities economy, and from Moab itself, which has become increasingly overrun with plastic fast food chain stores, second homes, developments, envelopments, backcountry guide services, four-wheelers and mountain bikers.

Stiles documents Moab’s slide into amenities decadence in his first book, Brave New West: Morphing Moab at the Speed of Greed, just released by the University of Arizona Press.  I e-mailed him some hard questions about his and other environmentalists’ roles in helping to bring about the new economy and about where the rural west is heading in the near and long term. 

New West You say you “didn’t realize as we were working so hard to eliminate the extractive industries from the face of the earth” that you would be creating an “economic vacuum,” since filled by the so-called amenities economy. But what did you think would happen? What is your vision for Moab and southern Utah?

Jim Stiles Well, that’s the point. We weren’t thinking. The power of capitalism used to escape most of us, who never were very good at being capitalists in the first place. We thought that if the extractive boom came to an end, that life in the rural west would be quieter and simpler, and certainly not as prosperous. But that was okay. Few of us anticipated the New West explosion we see today.

My ‘vision’ for Moab is in the first chapter of Brave New West and it’s not pretty. I see a future by mid-century with a U.S. population of 400 million, of a rural west where even small towns are nothing more than small urban population centers. Public lands will have become so crowded that they will be regulated and restricted in ways we cannot even imagine. I think the loss of freedom will be profound for those of us still living who know what freedom and open space once meant. But I’m guessing that succeeding generations will adapt, having never known what they missed.

NW Is the uranium industry making a comeback in southern Utah?

JS I continue to hear speculation about a boom. This week’s local newspaper suggests that uranium will be king in southeast Utah again. There are many people out there staking claims and searching for the next Mother Lode, just a few miles from here. Whether they find it in southern Utah remains to be seen, but a return to nuclear power in the U.S. seems inevitable to me. Even some mainstream environmentalists are giving it another look, when they consider the fossil fuel alternatives in this new age of global warming. What I don’t hear is a call to simplify our lives dramatically and reduce our demand for material wealth...for stuff. It’s how we measure our success these days. Even our happiness.

NW According to an article by M. John Fayhee in the High Country News, Scott Groene, executive director of the Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance (SUWA) has argued that the new economy, i.e. the new industrial tourism economy, is “being driven by forces that are far greater than we are.” How would you respond to that?

JS I think it’s pretty bewildering. There’s no doubt there are powerful market forces out there, but you’d never guess groups like SUWA had a problem with them. For almost 20 years, environmental groups like SUWA have embraced the “amenities economy” as a long term solution for the rural west’s economic woes. They have actively promoted it in their own literature. Now, when they look at the impacts being caused by it, they can’t just throw up their hands and say, ‘This is beyond our control. It’s not our fault.’ They can’t have it both ways.

Second, since when did progressive organizations refuse to take on an issue just because they thought they couldn’t win? Isn’t that what we’re supposed to do? Aren’t we supposed to “dream things that never were and say ‘why not?’”

The U.S. is the most consumptive nation on earth. We are 4% of the world’s population and consume almost 30% of its energy. Groups like SUWA still do battle against oil and gas exploration on public lands, against enormous odds. That’s a quixotic battle, and I commend them for it. Yet I cannot think of a more energy-consumptive industry than the amenities economy. It’s massive and, in fact, demands more oil, all the time, just to keep it going. How do we fight oil exploitation and then ignore the impacts of its consumption on the very land we’re trying to save? So for a group like SUWA to turn its back on this kind of growth and consumption without even trying to deal with it seems contradictory.

NW How would you answer SUWA staff attorney Heidi McIntosh’s charge that the Zephyr isn’t relevant anymore?

JS She also says she doesn’t read the Zephyr anymore. But consider what she’s missed—the theme of the current issue of the Zephyr is the immorality of war and includes a brilliant 1968 essay by Wendell Berry against the Vietnam War which is as compelling and appropriate now as it was then. My paper has actively opposed the Iraq War since the day it started. In the year since Ms. McIntosh expressed those sentiments, the Zephyr has covered issues like over-population and over-consumption, the hypocrisy of the Religious Right in America and the likes of Rush Limbaugh, the treatment of Native Americans in the 19th Century and today, and the barbaric practice of leg-hold traps. This list barely scratches the tables of contents for the past year, but I would think at least some of these issues might be relevant to Heidi McIntosh. And finally, not to put too much of an edge on this, but her comments that my paper has become “irrelevant” were included in a cover story about the Zephyr in High Country News. Sort of ironic, I’d say.

NW You mention Edward Abbey’s assumption that non-motorized recreation would always have “that reverential link.” What is the reverential link?

JS “Reverential” is what it means--"profound adoring awed respect.” Nowhere in the definition can one find the word ‘conquest,’ which is the way so many recreationists, motorized and non-motorized, look at wilderness. I don’t mean to cast too broad a stroke here. Many recreationists, on foot and bikes and ATVs do come to public lands with reverence. But increasingly, it is a place to test one’s skills, to challenge the rock, to pump the adrenalin. I don’t think Abbey saw this coming. He died just as this new extreme sports economy was catching fire.

NW Are you and Abbey both guilty of trying to slam the door behind you after arriving in southern Utah?

JS Clearly, if we tried to do that, we weren’t very good at it. We came to southeast Utah to be a part of the red rock community. We didn’t come to commodify it or to transform it. For years after my own arrival in the 70s, most of the new Moabites came for the same reasons we sought it out. They became kindred spirits. We were poor and happy. The changes that came later, that have been so profound, were not driven by that kind of philosophy.

NW Do you think that the locals in Moab viewed you and other environmentalists the same way you now view mountain bikers, developers and, as you call them, “rich weasels”?

JS I like this question. I’m sure the old timers looked at us with an annoyed curiosity, similar to the way some of us stared at the lycra-clad bikers. We were long-haired hippies who liked to commune with Nature, for god’s sake. But I doubt they looked at us in the way we look at developers and ‘rich weasels,’ simply because we were, almost without exception, broke. We were in no position financially to alter the face of Moab.

NW What is going to happen to the local economy when the influx of rich baby boomers dies off? Will their children keep up the demand for the amenities their parents paid big bucks to be close to or will demand (and the condo/second home market) wane?

JS I have no idea really. The children of the baby boomers will certainly demand their amenities; whether they’ll have any money to pay for them remains to be seen. They’ll probably get a fairly decent inheritance so they may be able to keep right on spending. So maybe it’s the grandkids who will face a rude awakening.

NW What would SUWA have to gain by acknowledging that they have been part of the problem, or by softening their approach on wilderness issues?

JS I once asked a SUWA staffer in Moab why they didn’t oppose the commercial exploitation of the backcountry at Arches National Park by canyoneering companies. He said, “because if we did, it would look like we were against everything.” I replied, “No, it would look like you’re being fair.” I don’t think any individual or organization can hope to maintain its integrity if it isn’t even-handed. Integrity has to count for something these days. But I don’t see how acknowledging that they’ve been a part of the problem would “soften their approach to wilderness.” To me, it would strengthen their position, not weaken it. Honesty and candor are powerful tools, no matter what kind of battle is being waged.

NW With five million dollars in their pockets for not advancing the struggle for more wilderness, why would SUWA want to succeed on the current Wilderness Bill?

JS Their new tax returns are online and now they’re almost up to $6 million. Despite my criticisms of SUWA, however, I still think they sincerely want a good wilderness bill; I just think they’ve become so narrowly focused and their goals so legalistically defined, they’ve lost their hearts in the process. Who was it that said, “We need more poets and fewer l awyers in the environmental movement?” Where is a good poet when you need one?

And it seems to me they could use some of that rainy day fund of theirs to accomplish a lot more. If they hired two new staffers, at $50,000 each, to deal with nothing but amenities impacts, that’s barely a dent in their war chest.

NW On page 170 of Brave New West, you discuss a canyon you and Reuben Scolnik had refused to explore. Why would you refuse to explore a canyon?

JS We were on the rim of a very deep canyon that seemed almost bottomless and there was no way to get into it without a technical descent. We considered getting our ropes and returning but then decided against it. We liked the idea of a mystery. Of not knowing for sure what was there. I guess in this day of GPS systems and guidebooks and guided tours, it’s an antiquated notion. That same canyon is now visited almost daily and rappeled into by commercial canyoneering companies.

NW On page 177, you talk about the next generation of backcountry explorers never having been without “adult supervision.” Is it possible that at some point the government and/or environmental groups will push for legislation requiring everybody who goes into the backcountry to have a guide, much as guides are now required for travel into Antelope Canyon and into Yellowstone in the wintertime (for snowmobilers)? Will the BLM, Forest Service and Park Service hike fees even higher in an attempt to limit access to the out-of-doors? At some point will we all have to get permits and/or pay a fee just to leave the cities?

JS I think, sad to say, it’s inevitable. It’s already happening. What I wonder is, 50 years from now, will anyone complain? That’s my greatest fear—that as our population continues to explode and as our society becomes more chaotic as a result and liberties are taken away from us to bring more “order,” will anyone notice? When our freedoms are whittled away gradually, one restriction at a time, humans have a way of adapting. In fact, that’s one good reason to “cling hopelessly to the past,” The Zephyr’s masthead slogan. What did the great photographer Eliot Porter say in Glen Canyon? “Remember these things lost.”

NW On page 234, you call the corporate heads of oil and gas companies “rich, arrogant bastards.” How many of these individuals have you met?

JS That was part writer’s hyperbole, part educated guess. I’ve never heard of an oil company CEO on food stamps so it’s a fair assumption he or she is doing quite well financially. However calling them bastards was probably unfair—I’m sure some of them have loving moms. As for the arrogance label, most of them are buddies of Dick Cheney and though we’ve never interacted, I’m guessing he’s a tad arrogant. So I suppose it’s guilt by association.

NW Is the division between motorized and non-motorized recreation, where most environmentalists draw the line (i.e. mountain bikes and ATVs) arbitrary?

JS Yes, I think it is. It’s probably where many enviros draw the line but I’ve found the lines much blurrier than that. What I do believe is that drawing such divisions has caused incredible polarization. Last year in the Blanding, Utah newspaper I read a letter from a young man who spent three paragraphs ranting about his loathing of environmentalists and wanted everyone to know that he was not “one of them.” But the purpose of his letter was to complain about the destruction of a nearby canyon by fellow ATVers, who had torn his favorite hiking and hunting spot to shreds. His concern is ours, but he did not want to be called an environmentalist. I think we are at least partly to blame for that.

NW On page 227, you write, “Surely, there is something of this Old West worth saving.” What part would that be? What do you think about the current administration’s policies?

JS few years ago, a couple from Germany decided to explore the Escalante canyons in their rental car in the middle of the winter and were caught in a terrible blizzard. They were able to make one call on their cell phone but otherwise they were totally unprepared. Two ranchers in the area, against the advice of everyone, drove dozens of miles on snowmobiles, through this blizzard, to find them. The man had started walking toward Escalante and the two ranchers found him alive. With the storm getting worse, one of them pushed on to find the woman. He was too late when he got there, but he had thought nothing of making the attempt.

While I might have little in common with those two ranchers politically or environmentally, I can’t help but respect their humanity and their courage and compassion. That’s the upside to the Old West...we know who our neighbors are and we know we can count on them when the chips are down, even when we don’t agree on other issues.

As for George W Bush, I believe he is the worst president in American history, with Warren Harding a close second.

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