discovered, our government is continuing
the work. Wild horses are seen as competition for western livestock (who are probably the primary destroyers of riparian
and grassland habitat) grazed on public
lands by way of taxpayer subsidy.
We project onto the horse our own
warring emotions, especially our guilt.
And then we do away with it. Symbol,
indeed. As Stillman writes, “America is
bleeding.” In the case of the mustang, it is
right from the heart.
—Melissa Holbrook Pierson
Bargaining for Eden
The Fight for the Last Open
Spaces in America
by stephen trimble
University of California Press, 2008.
$29.95, 336 pages.
WHAT DRIVES individuals and corporations to erect mega-malls and luxury
resorts in place of open meadows and
sleepy communities? It is quite literally
the million-dollar question. Money, however, is usually only part of
the answer. As Stephen
Trimble writes in Bargaining
for Eden, “Caught between
dreams, we are all greedy, and
we are all generous. How
then do we create a structure
for our communities that
expresses our altruism more
than our self-interest?”
Eden focuses on Earl
Holding, one of the nation’s
largest landowners and a reclusive Salt Lake City mogul
in charge of Sinclair Oil, Sun
Valley ski resort, and the Little America
hotel chain. A secretary once inquired if
Holding was pleased about the acquisition of a parcel next to one of his
ranches, to which he reportedly replied,
“I won’t be satis>ed until I own all the
land next to mine.”
Back when Utah made its play for the
2002 Winter Olympics, Holding used the
opportunity to super-size Snowbasin, a
beloved and unpretentious ski area in the
Ogden Valley, east of Salt Lake, into a
sprawling year-round resort. The plan
hinged on a controversial land exchange:
Holding needed to trade some private
parcels for Forest Service land adjacent to
Snowbasin where he wanted to build his
“resort village.”
Government o;cials concluded the
exchange would be a loser for the American
public, and Olympic organizers said the
expansion wasn’t necessary for Snowbasin
to host downhill-skiing events. But Holding
managed to get his way with grand help
from Utah’s congressional representatives,
who, through an act of Congress, circumvented the federal government’s land-exchange criteria and exempted the deal
from environmental-planning rules.
Trimble explores Holding’s compulsion
toward extravagant development in spite
of environmental damages and community outrage. (Holding declined requests
to speak with Trimble,
who confesses that he
is not Michael Moore
when it comes to confrontation.) The author
is critical, yet careful
not to vilify his subject.
Instead, Trimble
shifts gears and examines his own prejudices. He favored
the Clinton administration’s designation
of Grand Staircase–
Escalante National
Monument in southern Utah, even
though the declaration similarly dismissed locals’ input and their vision
of their home landscape. Then, when
Trimble purchases property and builds
a home near Capitol Reef National Park,
he scrutinizes his own involvement in his
new town, writing, “I bought land not to
in>ltrate the community but because I
loved it and was fortunate enough to be
able to pay for it.”
Trimble’s alignment—sometimes with
the powerless, in other cases with the
powerful—challenges readers’ attitudes.
An estimated 80 percent of western
ranches will change ownership in the next
two decades. Bargaining for Eden
ultimately asks what we are doing as
landowners, neighbors, and citizens to
ensure that our changing communities
are rooted in, not greed, but generosity.
—Joshua Zaffos
Red Gold
a film by travis rummel, ben
knight, and lauren oakes
Felt Soul Media, 2008. $25, 55 minutes.
IN A WORLD bombarded with bulletins
about disappearing arctic ice, missing
bees, and Chinese air pollution, it’s not
easy explaining what’s at risk if the largest
open pit mine proposed in North America
begins excavating massive amounts of
copper, gold, and molybdenum ore near
two of the world’s most productive
salmon rivers. The young >lmmakers of
Red Gold succeed by avoiding familiar
narratives of environmentalist advocacy.
Their documentary about the Pebble
Mine Project in southwest Alaska beautifully captures the landscape’s vitality—a
bear rising from a windblown meadow,
waves of salmon >nning their way
upriver, the ocean’s shining heave as >
shing boats head out. But the >lm’s true
power emerges from the simple act of
skipping narration and allowing people to
speak for themselves.
The >lmmakers spent sixty-eight days
>lming in Bristol Bay communities and
at river camps, interviewing an unlikely
coalition of sport anglers, business own-
