The Intersection between Social Change and Conservation in the New American West

Comment

The Intersection between Social Change and Conservation in the New American West JOEL BERGER∗ AND JON P. BECKMANN† ∗

Division of Biological Sciences, Northern Rockies Field Office, Wildlife Conservation Society, University of Montana, Missoula, MT 59812, U.S.A., email jberger@wcs.org †Wildlife Conservation Society, 301 Willson Avenue, Bozeman, MT 59715, U.S.A.

The rural American west is changing rapidly. Once known for wide-open spaces and economies ruled by resource extraction, agriculture, and ranching, it is still lauded for its scenery, recreational opportunities, and diverse species of wild animals (Power 1996). It is the differences among human social groups and the effects of these differences at the intersection of human society and conservation that are our primary interest.

Johnson (2011) offers a critique of the connections we made between the social and biological sciences (Berger & Beckmann 2010), but does not dispute our general finding that the absolute and relative number of registered sexual offenders increase at greater rates in boomtowns built around resource extraction than in other sorts of communities. That ecosystems are degraded as extraction-based boomtowns grow is not a point of broad scientific contention, and it is not new to suggest that energy boomtowns have more social problems, including pollution (an indirect effect), crowding, crime, and substance abuse, than communities that have economic bases in recreation (England & Albrecht 1984; Berger & Beckmann 2010). We applaud the fact that Johnson touts his 20 years of experience in the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem (GYE), but we disagree that our efforts are a disservice to interdisciplinary research. Here, we address Johnson’s primary criticisms of our methods and ethics.

To assess differences in registered sex offenders and a surrogate metric of health care (e.g., hospital beds) among communities (or counties) in the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem, we categorized communities as recreation, energy, or agrarian. Johnson suggests we should have used existing typologies (e.g., Rasker & Hansen 2000; Gude et al. 2007). Yet economic and social categories from existing databases are not resolved finely enough for our analyses. For instance, mining, construction, and retail trade are not represented in the Rasker et al. (2009) economic typologies referred to by Johnson (2011). And, it is not possible to quantitatively define

how tourism or recreation fit into the existing typologies Johnson suggests for the nine counties we studied. We could have attempted to fit the categories we used into existing typologies, but that did not seem appropriate given our questions. Alternatively, we could simply have not conducted analyses because the categories of interest to us had not been explored previously.

Instead, we queried residents, but not in-migrants, about the nature of the communities where they live.

Answers were lucid, just as they were 20 years earlier when one of us surveyed residents in Colorado communities experiencing substantial increases in population due to resource extraction (Berger & Daneke 1988). Indeed, social scientists in Colorado (England & Albrecht 1984) have classified communities as agrarian or industrial. Their categorizations offer a precedent for our agrarian and energy categories. Whereas Johnson is correct that a plethora of valuable compilations of county profiles exist (Rasker & Hansen 2000), these records were less helpful in our categorizations. Furthermore, county planners often believe their economies depend on recreation and industrial and agricultural development among other economic sectors. Thus, due to these factors and the flexibility one enjoys in science to explore relations among variables, we did not pursue our questions by using the “typologies” Johnson suggests. We believe our exploration of counties through input from county data sources also makes sense.

Johnson suggests we should have explained why we did not use a control group. Given our comparative approach, we do not think a control is necessary. Johnson (2011) did not offer insight into what control would have been appropriate. Johnson also questions the extent to which existing databases may contain errors that result in erroneous interpretation. We have no way of knowing how many registered sexual offenders meet their legal obligation to register. We do know law enforcement and judiciary authorities take registry seriously

Paper submitted July 16, 2010; revised manuscript accepted December 6, 2010.

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given the nature of the crimes and their implications for community safety. All scientists should be concerned about the reliability of databases whether they are maintained by criminal justice systems, resource agencies, or government census bureaus. In the case of databases of registered sexual offenders, despite lack of quality control, rapid increases in numbers of registered sexual offenders in boomtowns were detectable relative to other communities.

Johnson opines that we are unethically insensitive to sexual predators, stating, “In most states, including the 3 states in the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem, there is no legal definition of sexual predator, so why use the term in a scientific paper? The use of the term does an ethical disservice to registrants on the database.” We disagree.

The term is commonly used to describe sexual offenders, and it appears on lists of convictions on websites maintained by the states of Montana, Idaho, and Wyoming.

An Idaho government document states, “ . . . [the] law defines a ‘violent sexual predator’ as a person who has been convicted of an offense listed in section 18–8312, Idaho Code, and who has been determined to pose a risk of committing a sex offense” (http://www.isp.idaho.gov/ identification/sex_offender/documents/ WholeGuide. pdf). Montana’s Department of Justice website notes, “sexually violent predators“ are “offenders who have been convicted of a sexual offense and who suffer from a condition that makes them likely to engage in predatory sexual offenses” (http://www.doj.mt.gov/svor/ offendertypes.asp#offendertypes). Wyoming’s Sex Offender Registry states, “‘Predatory’ means an act directed at a stranger or a person with whom a relationship has been established or promoted for the primary purpose of victimization” (http://wysors.dci.wyo.gov/ sor/regact.htm). Thus, the word predatory is not universally regarded as inflammatory. We are not attempting to minimize the importance of semantics and carefully crafted words. We believe, however, that Johnson (2011) has gone too far in suggesting our work was unethical. We believe all people need to be treated with dignity, humility, and compassion, whether victim or perpetrator.

Johnson also takes issue with our use of the word seedier. Two anecdotes come to mind. The first involves a librarian in Sublette County, Wyoming, who in 2003 asked us to accompany her from the public library to her car. She was closing the library one evening and noted previously that on each of the public computers the last site accessed had been a pornography site. She said she was afraid. She indicated her feelings about safety had changed with the energy boom. Second, we recall a rancher musing about how many of his friends would show heightened levels of concern had they known about an increasing number of registered sex offenders in their community if their young daughters were walking home

Conservation Biology Volume 25, No. 3, 2011

Social Change and the American West

at night past their newer residents. Words such as seediness and seedier are relative, and their meanings lie in the eyes of the beholder. But, on the basis of data collected in our study and others, social disarray is associated with at least some energy boomtowns.

The western United States has a much higher percentage of public lands, many of which differ in legislative mandate, than other regions of the United States. The Bureau of Land Management and U.S. Forest Service have jurisdiction over the majority of these public lands. We believe Johnson agrees with the premise of our original paper when he states: “The incidence of crime in rural counties is not in question. Incidents of felonies and arrests and increased gas drilling in Sublette County are positively correlated with growth of energy development (Jacquet 2009).” We believe, as Johnson (2011) apparently does, that crime, energy development, and their relation to social dishevel deserve more attention.

The larger topic, however, is not about publishing articles, although this is obviously the currency for scientists, or about academic theoretical underpinnings. A search for truth is incumbent in science, yet the commentary

by Johnson misses a critical point. Real people on real landscapes have their livelihoods affected by reckless energy development. Alterations of physical landscapes and changes in human population dynamics do modify local human communities. Our focus continues to be the intersection between society and the conservation of biological diversity. We hope others will recognize that the New West is important, complex, and worthy of study on more than theoretical fronts.

Literature Cited Berger, J., and J. P. Beckmann. 2010. Sexual predators, energy development, and conservation in greater Yellowstone. Conservation Biology 24:891–896.

Berger, J., and D. Daneke. 1988. Effects of agricultural, industrial, and recreational expansion on frequency of wildlife law violations in the Central Rocky Mountains, USA. Conservation Biology 2:283–289.

England, J. L., and S. L. Albrecht. 1984. Boomtowns and social disruption. Rural Sociology 49:230–246.

Gude, P. H., A. J. Hansen, and D. A. Jones. 2007. Biodiversity consequences of alternative future land use scenarios in Greater Yellowstone. Ecological Applications 17:1004–1018.

Jacquet, J. 2009. Energy boomtowns and natural gas: implications for Marcellus shale local governments & rural communities. Northeast Region Center of Rural Development 43:1–67.

Johnson, J. 2011. Conservation and social disarray: response to Berger and Beckman. Conservation Biology 25:10.1111/j.15231739.2011.01661.x.

Power, T. M. 1996. Lost landscapes and failed economies: the search for a value of place. Island Press, Covello, California.

Rasker, R., and A. J. Hansen. 2000. Natural amenities and population growth in the Greater Yellowstone region. Human Ecology Review 7:30–41.

Rasker, R., P. H. Gude, J. A. Gude, and J. Van Den Noort. 2009. The economic importance of air travel in high-amenity rural areas. Journal of Rural Studies 25:343–353.