SUSTAINABILITY

The Grand Plan

SUSTAINABILITY

Just a Name

By Stephen L. Wilmeth

            Cowboy names remain an interesting topic.

            Bose, Jiggs, Spud, Slim, Shorty, Tex, Guerro, Hub, Curley, Joe Bob, Hoot, Big Nose Kate, and Pinkie were characters whose lives were real and colorful. Too few of them remain with us today. Certainly, there is a limited attempt to capture the essence of their once wild West, but the real point is clear. Just too few true Westerners remain and fewer yet are arriving.

They are and have been eliminated by the very thing that created their unique customs and culture: claims on the lands that shaped and cultured their emergence.

The Loss

It was a BLM official who described the goal and planned outcome of the current state of affairs.

The next American land rush is upon us.

The only response must be the admission of fact. Those of us who find ourselves sinking deeper and deeper into the abyss of wilderness lands management as the result of a singular ruler’s signature on an executive order are ever more incredulous. All indication of any hope, much less help, is dimming. Like it or not, we have become the next indigenous native community awaiting our fate which will be the forced removal from out lands.

A simple metric is the number of cattle in the West today as opposed to 1965. Depending on agency and protected federal land particulars, over half of the numbers have been eliminated. When returns to risk and management are negative, accidental losses become expected losses and attrition will occur each and every time.

It is a terrible state of affairs.

Of course, the displacement isn’t market driven. It is orchestrated. Its origin is created by the absence of and the limitation of private property rights along with the inability to enforce the limited rights in place.

Just a Name

It’s time to recognize there is another calendar system. No longer is BC or AD the only marker. The year 1992 must be added to the history books as the beginning of yet another epic in time. That was the year that the Earth Summit brought together the various forces of the modern land rush. Certainly, the foundation was laid prior to that time, but the parties of record were brought together for the heap big junta to set the course of what has transpired since.

The mission statement with its Force Majeure was unveiled. What would become the Extinction Rebellion mob, conceptualized and anointed their murky moniker,

Not to be outdone, the President’sCouncil on Sustainability Development (PCSD) was scheduled a year later. At that gathering, corporations were recruited and enthusiastically joined the green mob to set the course toward what would become the elimination of resource extraction (at least for the sweaty masses).

What we had naively thought was secular urban ignorance was actually a planned prescription for the complete removal of property rights for the purpose of absolute control by elite interventionists. That cadre of jeffes concluded theirs was the only roadmap for salvation of Mother Earth from the human scourge. They also concluded that the resulting human tragedy to be incurred in the upcoming process was simply a necessary collateral loss.

We had been led to believe the suggestion that America’s cornerstone, the citizenry and its private property and individual liberty, were lasting gifts. We just thought we were important.

The primary PCSD guiding body was the Sustainable Agriculture Task Force. Those lofty characters were charged with developing an integrated vision of sustainable agriculture. The initial operators came from the Natural Resources Defense Council, Ciba-Geigy Corporation, and then Secretary of Agriculture Richard Rominger. In other words, biggest green, biggest corporation, and ever bigger government were tasked with the intent to tell farmers and ranchers how to run their businesses. Their idea of sustainability was suddenly not just the watch word, but the invented boogie man of all extraction industries.

Through the umbrella of the Natural Defense Council came the division commanders including The United Nations Environmental Programme, Worldwatch Institute, the Sierra Club, the World Wildlife Foundation and others. There wasn’t a single farmer or rancher at the party much less a cowboy by any name.

That is why every one of us who toil daily trying to exist in this business must question why the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association, ostensibly the first line ranching advocates, invited the World Wildlife Foundation into their ranks starting in 2010 at their summer meetings. Every indicator now suggests that, from that time, the global sustainability guidelines and production standards have been systematically embedded in the U.S. beef industry. The WWF’s logo, the panda, was even added to the Beef Check-off logo!

A reminder of from the World Wildlife 2017 report should be the guideline for not just caution but rejection of anything they suggest to us.

Meat eaters are destroying the planet … to save the Earth, it (is) vital that we change human consumption habits away from meat.

These people are not our friends.

The Grand Plan

Sustainability, in the context of our world and the green team, is disconnected. To us, it is a business art form, a way of life, and a calling. To them, it is an abomination promulgated by a lesser citizenry. Sustainability to us is the right to stand alone by the applied wisdom gained by the free and unencumbered use of our private property and inherent rights. Sustainability to them is the qualified rejection and the withdrawal of all private property and inherent rights.

This is not a matter of miscommunication. This is not a matter of trying incessantly to explain our situation and expect them to come to their senses. Their game plan is clearly delineated and plotted for our destruction.

The names we call ourselves are lodged in affection. The names they call us are lodged in contempt.

Stephen L. Wilmeth is a rancher from southern New Mexico. “Pray for El Paso.”