Deer in the Mimbres Valley Photo by Carla DeMarco.

Today, the value of grazing cows on public land is being seriously questioned. And public lands ranchers like my neighbors are scared and angry. My valley is a microcosm of what is happening across the West. In these last ten years, we have grown from a small community of farmers and ranchers to a larger community of farmers, ranchers, retirees, school teachers, entrepreneurs, small gardeners, and others. We are increasingly polarized. "Cowboys" on one side. "Environmentalists" on the other.

We look out our window and see two different landscapes.

The ranchers see grass growing on hillsides and around stream areas that have not changed much in their lifetimes. (At least to human eyes, things have not changed noticeably - perhaps there is just a little more erosion, a little more bare space between the plants, a little less water in the creek.) These ranchers see a land that is healthy. Certainly, it is healthier than it was a hundred years ago, in the heyday of unregulated grazing. They see a land that is productive. They see a land richly intertwined with their own personal history: that arroyo is where Granddad took a spill on the bay mare, that hill is where Aunt June met Uncle Bob.

Relative newcomers view the valley from a very different perspective. We read from a history book that vividly paints the West that was before the cattle came: grass up to a horse's belly, perennial rivers alive with beaver and trout, a wolf's resonant howl in the distance. We know that overgrazed riparian areas can actually lower the water table. We regret that here, in the Gila National Forest, mountain lions and black bear and coyotes are killed annually to keep this area safe for cattle. Because this is still open range, we chase the cows from our gardens every year. We backpack in the Gila Wilderness and find our camping sites littered with cow pies. We worry about things like the growing desertification of the West and the destruction of wildlife habitat. We see degradation.

Nationally, we vastly outnumber the cowboys and ranchers on our public land. Only some 23,000 "permittees" lease grazing rights to 268 million acres of federal property - where they produce less than 5% of the country's beef. The Sierra Club alone has fifteen times as many members as there are public lands ranchers. The National Wildlife Federation has a membership of over five million.

Still, the livestock industry remains a uniquely powerful force in the West. And in small rural areas like my valley, national figures do not mean much. Here, the right kind of bumper sticker is a red blazon of "Eat Beef!" The wrong kind of bumper sticker can mean trouble. Former customers may boycott your business; people will talk about you in the cafe; the post mistress is suddenly cold; a neighbor does not want her daughter playing with yours.

This goes beyond politics. In questioning the traditions of American ranching, you have dismissed a man's livelihood as inconsequential - and destructive. You have taken away a whole chunk of Western heritage. You have struck at the heart of a community and a shared value system.

I have been to meetings where men pounded their fists on the table. "The environmentalists will get you!" warned a portly gentleman from the National Rifle Association. "They'll have spur marks on them if they try!" shot back a rancher. These people had come together to discuss the growing herds of elk in the Gila National Forest - elk who were competing with cattle for grass. It didn't take long before the immediate problem in wildlife management was lost in an uproar of emotion.

The subject became war: "The environmentalists want everything for themselves!"

The subject became survival: "We're the endangered species around here!"

The subject became grief: "I love this land. How can they say that we're destroying it?"

For the most part, my environmental friends say this very thing in a fairly flat and even tone. This is the truth. These are the facts.

Sometimes, however, their voices too can shake with rage and sorrow. "Do you know how much money we spend to subsidize grazing in our forests?" "Do you know that they've put cows back on the Gila Bird Refuge? Those willows we planted! They've all been eaten!" "Do you know how little riparian cottonwood habitat is left in the Southwest?" "Do you know what the West could look like?"

There is not much middle ground here.

Environmentalists are ignorant, power-hungry elitists who want to destroy an American way of life. Ranchers are ignorant, power-hungry elitists who are destroying a national heritage.

Polarization. The new range war. As usual, the issues are more complex than they seem. But in the last few years, I have come - haltingly - to a few conclusions.

The ranching community is going to have to change. Seventy percent of the West - both private and public land - is grazed! The idea of running cows everywhere and any which way is simply not working.

The very mythology of the cowboy is outdated. In a time we scramble to protect what remains of a once-virgin continent, the cowboy continues the task of taming the wilderness. (In a statewide survey, 99% of the ranchers in my county felt that wilderness areas had zero to little value.) In a time when we have discovered the importance of biodiversity, the cowboy is a monoculturist. In a time of increasing population pressures, the cowboy stands for an individualism that clashes headfirst with pollution laws, zoning, grazing restrictions, watershed management, and other social legislation. In a time of awakened spirituality toward the earth, the cowboy still seeks to subdue and dominate.

I also believe that the environmental community, whose mythology is somewhat newer, needs to refine its viewpoint. Above all, we need to include people in our solutions and in our dreams. We need to respect those who work on the land and to learn from them. Our society - our cities, our VCRs, our cereal boxes - depends on a base of natural resources. The rancher knows this somewhat better than the rest of us. We can not just "protect" the land. We also need to use it. We can not just visit it on a camping trip. We also need to live on it in order to survive. We need to be at home here. We need to be intimate.

Perhaps this - a mutual need for intimacy with the land - is the middle ground we will eventually find. In my valley, at least, ranchers and environmentalists have a lot in common. We both live here by choice, after all. We both love the look of yuccas against a blue sky, of Cooke's Peak turning slowly to purple, of grama grass like a flag in the wind. We both want a healthy rural life for our children and for our children's children.

For the time being, cowboys and Earthfirst!ers will continue to square off. But at some point, surely, we will stop calling names, catch our breath, look around - and then look to each other.

What kind of rural community is possible in the 21st century? How can we fit into the Western landscape? How can we feel at home in the natural world?

These are the questions ahead.