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A Day in the Bristlecones
Ari van Schilfgaarde
The oldest organisms in the world live in the White Mountains of California. They are the only trees on their hillside, this is a retirement community for trees. Gnarled, they stand still, the wind whipping around their exposed trunks. Roots too are exposed, stark reminders of the hunt for water that characterizes life in the high desert. The wind is the bristlecone's salvation, as is the dearth of water. Without these two factors other species could come in, bringing their youthful exuberance into this geriatric stronghold. Were another species able to survive here in the biting wind and sandy soil, it is unlikely that the bristlecones would last long (relatively speaking). Their reproduction cycle is so slow that by the time the next generation of seedlings had sprouted a whole forest of "normal" trees will have sprung up. These grandmother trees are totally dependent on adversity for their continued existence. They live here because nothing else can withstand the intensity of the area. Unique among trees all they need to live is a thread of bark from the roots to the last remaining branch. All the bristlecones need is a thread of protection from the elements and they will continue to live for millennia. When they die, there will be nothing left to take their place, nothing to hold the soil, or slow the particles of sand the wind kicks up.
In the Nevada desert another set of grandmothers define themselves by their ability to withstand adversity. Their existence also is characterized by hardship. Hands lined with dirt, and faces wrinkled by the sun, they sit in rusted chairs manufactured before my parents were born. They are facing an invasive species, adapted to the changing political climate, the way the whitebark pine will eventually invade the bristlecone territory. The ranching way of life is dying throughout the West, and the political climate change is slowly allowing other niches to open around the Dann sisters. They cling to their sandy soil, the roots of their culture in the ground by their ranch. Old trucks and trailers speak of family coming to help with the ranch when there was still plenty of water. Lean-tos filled with old paint and partially finished windows whisper of lost faith that the land will prove to harsh for the invasive miners and the hated BLM. These are all weathered, pitted by the sand that also whistles through the air. These two women are hanging onto their lives by a strip of bark. A mere thread of protection provided by the Western Shoshone Defense Project is all that keeps them from being unceremoniously removed from their home, uprooted and sent the proverbial mill of society at large. Similar to the bristlecone pines, these two women are not commercially valuable; their contribution to society is in the stories they tell, the wisdom they share, and the determination they help inspire.
But the political winds grow ever stronger, the mines want the land, or more accurately access to the water under the land, and the agency entrusted to manage the contested land faces ever increasing pressure to end the conflict, take the land and open it to the invasive species. The Dann sister's bark is beginning to peel under the constant barrage of legislation and fines, soon even this shred of protection may vanish and with it the Dann sisters may collapse under the barrage of pressures designed to topple them. Once they are dead politically, removed from their roots, their ranch will be all that remains; an empty shell, full of the trappings that accompany a harsh life, rotting in the Nevada sun.
Why do two sets of geriatric natives engender opposite responses from general society? We protect the bristlecones with a visitor center and anonymity for fear the invasive visitors will damage the fragile Methuselah, while the grandmother Danns plot legal strategies until the IRS comes to collect the $4 million in fines and taxes they owe. Is it only that these grandmothers are sitting on land that has trace amounts of gold, and the trees have nothing commercially valuable to offer that makes us destroy one, and venerate the other? Perhaps, but more likely the trees offer no threat of change, they raise no political objections, they passively await their death in a way that the Indians will not. No political ground can be won destroying these trees, but claiming the Western Shoshone lands for all Americans is a political winner.
Are the Dann sisters victims of the Federal Government any more than the trees are victims of the wind and the poor soil? Were it not for the adversity of the climate the trees would long ago have succumbed to the forest that seeks to expand its range into the great heights. The Shoshone people are traditionally divided, perhaps without the aggression of the BLM, tribal members would have offered up these lands to the government in exchange for a portion of the gold profit. Instead, these two old ladies (as they call themselves) have become the nexus of a great battle, have turned a treaty dispute into a human rights case, and themselves into figureheads of a tremendous resistance movement.
Whether or not either of the two are victims has no bearing on their value to society. Emotional appeals aimed at allaying past transgressions whether by the wind or the Federal Government ought not figure into current policy. We need not descend to sentimentality to find reasons to protect either; for both have valid cases for protection. Both are remnants of another time, uniquely suited to their environment. The Dann sisters have an emotional and spiritual relationship with the land that the rest of us can not hope to understand. It serves the whole of society well to have unique viewpoints if only to see what values we do or do not want to instill in society at large. Surely the determination and spunk the Danns have showed in their struggle can inspire others in their battles of conscience. The pines serve a utilitarian purpose of managing erosion as well as the ephemeral values that we experience in their presence.
So why do we only protect one and eschew the other? The bristlecones are already on their own reservations, isolated by their ecological needs; the Dann sisters refuse to be placed on a reservation, refuse to go the way of the other Indian tribes into foreign lands meaningless to their people. Both are defined by their struggle, and both will eventually lose, but there are new trees being born. New cultures are harder to find.