Sagebrush Collaboration: How Harney County Defeated the Takeover of the Malheur Wildlife Refuge

I have lived in Oregon for over 30 years now. Through all of those years the takeover of the Malheur Refuge was, in my opinion, by far the hardest event to understand. I have been to the refuge many times. And even before reading this book I knew some of the history of the refuge. But the book really tells the complete story of it, as well as that of Harney County. The story has given me even more admiration for the people living there.

Since Ammon Bundy’s January 2016 occupation of the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge, Oregon’s Harney County has attracted a new crop of books trying to understand this place. Ever since Peter French became one of the nation’s largest ranchers in the late 1800s, the place has attracted attention out of size with its population, notably including Denzel and Nancy Ferguson’s “Sacred Cows at the Public Trough” and Nancy Langston’s “Where Land and Water Meet.”The other books (and long-form journalism) since 2016 have placed Harney County in the context of western resentment of the federal government. Those other authors have tended to argue that this resentment made Harney a fertile place for people like Dwight and Steven Hammond to get away with cattle trespass and even arson on federal lands. Even so, one can exaggerate the lawlessness; the Hammonds did not enjoy local support and eventually accepted a plea bargain in the arson case. They served prison time before Donald Trump pardoned them.Peter Walker wants to rethink the topic. He doesn’t want to describe either the history of western anger or the events of the 2016 occupation. Instead, Walker wants to understand why locals didn’t support the occupation even though they shared many of Ammon Bundy’s resentments. Walker’s answer is that a history of collaboration among ranchers, some public land managers, environmentalists, and sometimes the Burns Paiute Tribe helped inoculate the community against radicalism. The Steens Mountain Cooperative Management and Protection Area of 2000, which passed local collaboration into federal law, makes Harney County different than much of the rest of the region.That’s an interesting idea though it’s also an overly-optimistic take. Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt had forced local ranchers to the bargaining table over Steens Mountain at the end of the Clinton administration, which isn’t necessarily a good way to defuse anger. The area does have organic ranchers producing sustainably for the Portland hipster market but it also has traditional ranchers tied closely with national abattoirs and distributors. Harney County voted for Trump at roughly the same rates as its neighbors in both 2016 and 2020 — between 70% and 80%.Though it was relatively slow to join its neighbors, Harney County has voted for the Greater Idaho Movement.That said, this book offers a good counterbalance to other books on the Malheur occupation. (You might start with Anthony McCann’s “Shadowlands,” by the way.) Consider the evidence on both sides as well as the historical background in Langston’s book, and make up your own mind.

This is an well-written and meticulously researched study of one of the more sensational efforts tore-shape public lands. It is also an excellent example of how community involvement can work outpeaceful solutions to thorny issues of public concern while addressing the needs and wishes ofdisparate community groups and individuals. A tribute to the American genius for pluralism.

Important story - Well written

This very well researched history of the Bundy seizure of the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge provides important lessons for everyone. We are fortunate that Peter Walker devoted the time and exemplary word-smithing to this book. Public land is a heritage that we enjoy as U.S. citizens and that we can pass on intact to our heirs. The lack of objective analysis by the Bundy boys and their fellow seditionists is clear. It is an impossibility for local counties to assume the role of managing large areas of land due to the financial requirements. If the Bundies are successful in wresting ownership of our public federal lands away from us, the counties would eventually have to sell the land to avoid bankruptcy. That means the land would end up in the private hands of billionaires, who would likely prohibit the present livestock lessees from continuing to use the land for grazing. Many of the local ranchers who graze public BLM land near the Malheur Wildlife Refuge do not want the Federal government to loose management authority of that land. Those ranchers could not afford the property taxes or the cost of fighting fires. Sagebrush Collaboration provides excellent insights into the facts, as well as the delusions of the Bundies. Buy a copy, read it and pass it along to someone you know who loves our public lands.

The parts of this book that describe just what happened in Burns, Oregon in 2016 and 2017 are gripping, documented with photographs and quotations. But the author has a point to make, and unfortunately he makes it over and over and over. It is that citizens of Harney County had learned to collaborate with the federal agencies which own land in the county, so that by the time that the invaders arrived with their anti-federal propaganda, the citizens did not see the feds as enemies, because all sides had learned to communicate and solve problems together. This is a good point, but the author belabors it to death. It is resurrected on page after page after page. You can find the words “collaboration” or ”collaborative” eight times on a single page more than once. These pages are a repetitive slog compared to the rest of the book.

A well-written and researched account of life in rural Oregon and how community working together is a powerful force—even against domestic terrorism. As a native Oregonian, I’m proud to share this state with the good folks of Harney Co. We’re in this together. Highly recommend this read.

Great story!